Phoenix Rising
by Peacockgirl
Summary: Tony and Peter cope with the aftermath of Titan together. Or … In the wake of the snap heard round the universe, everyone notices how parental Tony acts towards Peter. He finally stops denying it. Sequel Now Posted.
1. Chapter 1

Tony watched the aliens and their half-wit leader turn to dust with an alarmed despair that couldn't quite eclipse the searing pain every time that he breathed. He turned to the wizard for explanation, only to watch him float away before his eyes. "We're in the endgame now," Strange said, altogether unhelpfully, as his skin flaked off and his body dissolved. Tony wanted to demand that he explain himself, but his tone conveyed there was a reason he did the exact thing that he swore he wouldn't. Like all enigmas, he'd never tell. Then he was gone.

Perhaps the moon had hit him harder than he thought, because he was didn't know what was going on.

"Mister Stark, I don't feel so good."

Panic filled him with a terrible clarity as Peter stumbled towards him. He was pale and shaky and Tony knew what was coming. It was like that homicidal grape had thrust the sword through his gut again and he could not move or speak through the agony.

"I don't know what's happening.'"

But Tony did, as all the hopes and dreams he'd had for the kid went up in ash.

"I don't want to go." The waiver in the kid's voice broke something in him he'd never thought was whole to begin with. Peter pitched forward and Tony pulled him into his chest, wrapping his arms around him as if he could hold him there, to the surface of some God-forsaken planet where he should never have been in the first place. Tony had thought he'd prepared for every possibility, tinkering away in his lab to give the suit dozen of safety nets, when he should have been dissuading him from the asinine notion that teenagers could fight crime and also aliens. He was too young for this. Too young and good and stupid and brilliant, and oh God his aunt would kill him if she didn't die of grief first.

This was his fault.

"I don't want to go, Mr. Stark, please, I don't want to go."

Everything he wanted to say—everything the boy deserved to hear every day of his life and not just when it was ending—stuck in his throat. He was failing him again, just like he had failed the universe.

Thanos had thrown a _moon_ at him and he'd gotten right back up, but Peter's terror in his dying moments paralyzed him.

He wasn't sure he'd ever rise again.

Then Peter seemed to rally, his whimpers quieted. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Tony could not fathom the heart of this kid, to offer him underserved absolution on his last breath.

 _I feel like if you died that would be on me._

This was definitely his fault, and he could never invent enough tech to emerge from this loss.

As Peter's eyes closed Tony's did too. He allowed himself to slump forward, pressing his forehead against whatever part of Peter he could reach, waiting for the boy to dissolve in his arms. Lost to the wind, like all good things. He could not bear to watch.

He hoped the kid knew, in that moment, that he was not alone.

He should have said that. He should have said a million things, that he was proud, and impressed, and scared, every single moment, that Peter would go down the same reckless path Tony had chosen.

He could hear his own breath, ragged in the silence.

His forehead sunk no further.

The weight in his arms did not lessen.

His battered body protested the pretzel he'd twisted himself into.

Tony opened his eyes.

Peter was still there.

 _Peter was still there!_

Eyes screwed shut and trembling like a leaf, but solid. More solid that he'd been when he first stumbled.

"Breathe, Pete. Just keep breathing." He ran his hand down the kid's back, hoping he could feel it enough through the suit to find it grounding or soothing. It was doing wonders for the hysteria that had been coursing through his own body.

"Open your eyes, kid," he whispered, needing to see them to know that this was real.

Peter refused with a pained whimper, shaking his head against Tony's chest.

But Tony couldn't bear this anymore. "Peter, look at me!" he commanded, in the tone his father had used that Tony had always hated but never disobeyed. It did the trick, because Peter snapped to attention and met Tony's gaze.

His eyes were bright with tears and _life._

"Look down, Pete."

He was still so pale, but he wasn't ashen. "I can't, Mr. Stark. Please don't make me."

"You have to," he said, his voice still too harsh. But when the kid wouldn't comply he grabbed one of his hands and lifted it into his line of sight.

(He was so relieved when it did not break off and crumble away.)

"Solid, see. You're okay. You're okay kid. You're not going anywhere." He felt high, like there was something euphoric coursing through his veins.

"I'm not?'

There was just enough relief there that Tony believed it, barking out a laugh. "You're not. You're okay. It was just a panic attack."

"It wasn't just a panic attack," Peter snapped, wrapping his arms around himself. "I felt it. I was disintegrating, like the others."

Tony had thought he'd glimpsed as much, before he'd refused to let himself look at the way Peter's leg had started to fracture. "How do you feel now?" he asked, holding his breath as he waited for an answer. If the kid's body was still trying to hold itself together, that was not an agony either one of them could sustain.

Peter held out an arm, rotated it slowly, and then took a steadying breath. "I think it stopped. I feel normal."

Tony squeezed him just a little tighter, but distracted him by quipping, "Score one for radioactive spider healing powers and zero for homicidal probability."

"What just happened?" Peter asked, looking up at him, so tragically young but unmistakably alive.

"My father." Tony startled at the voice from behind him. From his position half draped in Tony's lap, Peter surely noticed. He had forgotten that they weren't alone. He got the uncomfortable sense that this blue alien lady had been _watching_. "All my life his sole ambition has been to collect all six infinity stones so he could snap his fingers and eliminate half the galaxy. He must have succeeded."

"You mean half the people are just gone – everywhere?" Peter asked.

At the blue woman's nod Peter rolled to the side and vomited, explosively. Tony's hand found his back again, his own stomach rolling.

They'd failed, he knew that, but there had still been one stone left on Earth. This meant that Vision was surely gone, and who knew how many others had fallen.

Roughly half, at least.

"Sorry," Peter croaked, looking absolutely forlorn. Though there had been many times Tony wanted Peter to comprehend the repercussions of his actions he could find no fault with him now, when Tony had dragged him into this by telling him they had to save the wizard.

"Stop apologizing."

Peter nearly apologized again, by reflex, but stopped himself before pivoting back toward Tony.

Unfortunately the action brought him eye level with Tony's chest. "Mister Stark, you're bleeding," he squeaked. "A lot."

Most of the blood was old, but the wound had reopened, and he could see fresh crimson leaking from the edges of the binding agent. The real trouble, he knew, was the damage that he'd sealed inside.

"Got a little stabbed," he said, trying to brush it off.

"That is a mortal wound," the alien deduced coldly. Peter flinched, his eyes growing wide, and Tony made a resolution.

 _He would not die in front of the kid._

"Only if it kills me," he breezed, but now that the terror of losing Peter had faded he realized how desperately he might need his resolve to make it back to Earth. Strange had been a fool to trade the stone for the life of a dead man.

"But I should see a doctor. Shame ours disappeared on us. Robo Smurf, I'm going to need your help getting us back to Earth."

Peter's lips twitched into a smile just for a second, and that was worth the glare said Smurf fixed upon him.

"I could hasten your death, Terran, and take the ship to seek my own revenge."

"No nicknames then, got it."

"Why would I help you?"

It might have been fun to banter a bit, if he wasn't responsible for getting Peter back to Earth before he bled out. As it was, he went right for honesty. "You want to kill your father, right? I have friends back home that want the same thing. All of us scattered haven't been able to accomplish it yet. But maybe together we can. We're the only allies you've got," (he didn't know that, but it seemed right, with that perpetual scowl), "and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Some Chinese guy said that, I think. So what do you say? Give us a lift?"

"Please?" Peter added, and Tony would be damned if it wasn't the kid's big pleading eyes that made the woman relent.

"Fine," she growled. "I will transport you to your pathetic planet. I may or may not stay there to join your pitiful army."

"Probably isn't an army. Just a handful of folks."

"Not helping," Peter hissed. Tony laughed at the sheer miracle that he was still able to annoy the kid, but the action ended in a pained stutter.

"What's your name, Miss?" Peter asked, a proper little diplomat. Tony didn't think that _thing_ had ever been called Miss in her life.

She regarded him skeptically, and Tony could practically see the gears in her head turning. Even JARVIS had seemed more human than this. "Nebula," she finally answered.

It was the most alien name that still happened to be an English word that he could possible imagine.

"I'm Peter. And this is Tony Stark."

"I crashed my ship into Thanos. But I asked my sister's idiot friends to meet me here. Their ship must be around here someplace. Can you walk?"

"I'm fine," Tony lied, but even standing turned out to be more of a trial than he expected.

She stalked off across the hostile landscape, and Peter stayed close enough that Tony could lean some of his weight against him without being obvious about it. They were just two casual acquaintances, wildly mismatched in age, taking a stroll across an alien planet.

"Try not to die on the way," Robo Smurf called over her shoulder. "I think it would sadden the child."

* * *

They found a bed in an empty cabin, and Tony had never been so glad to collapse. He rested his eyes for a moment, reassured by the hum of the engine as Nebula started the ship. When he opened them he found Peter hovering at his bedside, staring down at him as if he had x-ray vision.

"Pull up a chair if you're going to stay there all night," he said, unnerved by the intensity of the kid's gaze.

"Nah." He retreated a few steps to the corner of the room. The whoosh of the first web startled Tony, but shock soon turned to fascination as Peter carefully constructed a hammock that hung down from the ceiling. Finally satisfied, he scurried up the wall and flung himself on it.

"Pretty cool trick," Tony said. "You've done that before, haven't you?"

He quirked a smile. "Good thing Aunt May never looked up." At the mention of his aunt he sobered quickly, and neither mentioned what they were surely both thinking. An uncomfortable silence fell, leaving Tony nothing to focus on besides the throbbing beneath his ribcage.

The kid was brooding so loud Tony could practically hear it. The room was dim, and he could barely see Peter in his spider nest, but he could tell that his eyes were open as he stared up at the ceiling.

"Why so glum?" he asked when he couldn't stand the silence anymore. He regretted his words as soon as they came out of his mouth because there were half a dozen obvious reasons.

Peter scowled, clearly thinking him an idiot, and rightly so, before he took a deep watery breath. "You were right. I'm too young to be an Avenger."

"Technically I made you an Avenger after trying to make you an Avenger a year ago, so I wasn't right." It was instinct, to pick holes in arguments and bluster through uncomfortable situations with distracting nicknames and misplaced confidence.

"I'm not cut out for this. Things got rough out there and I cried like a baby. I'm sorry I didn't act like a hero. I was just so scared."

Tony could not explain the fierce need that welled up inside him to dissuade Peter of the ridiculous notion that he wasn't good enough. It didn't matter that Peter was too young to be fighting alien overlords on another planet. Or that a super hero brigade truly wasn't the place for a teenager, as Tony had realized just an hour ago. He would not let the kid drown in undeserved self-pity.

"I was scared too, champ. Really scared. Does that make me less of a hero? I've just had a lot longer to learn how to deal with it. No one should have to be okay with what we saw today. And when we get back home I'll get you the best super secret therapist money can buy, if you want."

" _You_ get scared? Iron Man?"

"I became Iron Man because I was scared." He admitted it without meaning to. The conversation was becoming a bit fuzzy around the edges. "I've been scared ever since. I had a vision of Thanos six years ago, and it turns out the reality might have been worse. All you can do is ride out the panic attacks and dust yourself off to fight again."

"I don't think it was a panic attack." Peter sounded so young in that moment, and Tony lamented the distance between them that he couldn't cross even as he realized the safety it provided.

It was unlikely that Peter could see the tears welling in his eyes.

"It was like I could feel the cells in my body break apart and bond back together, over and over. I didn't know if I was going to die or just keep regenerating forever."

"I'm damn glad that spider was such a bad ass," Tony choked out, hoping the joke hid the way his voice waivered with all the sentiment lurking behind it.

"Look, I know I like to poke fun, and I've been hard on you in the past – for your own good I might add. But I'll never use anything that happened since we left Earth against you, I promise. Except for the fact you think Alien is an old movie. That embarrasses me."

"Thanks, Mister Stark." Peter sounded stronger in that moment than he had since the first bozo disintegrated, and Tony thought that was good because he was feeling weaker by the second.

But the kid's typical uber-formality stung a bit. His father had been Mr. Stark. Tony didn't want to think of him now, when he'd surely disapprove of everything that had gone down today.

(Tony knew he was a screwup. The fact that there was a hole in his gut and an absence of half the beings in the universe proved that. But the kid was breathing, so he wanted to focus on that for the present.)

"We've fought aliens together in outer space, kid. You can call me Tony."

He didn't respond, and Tony wondered if he'd crossed some boundary, somehow. If he should just accept the respect he was due and bury that twinge of discomfort.

"We're going to fix this, aren't we, Mr.—Tony?" Peter asked after a minute or two of heavy silence. "All those people aren't going to stay gone?"

It had seemed pretty final. Tony had found that death was one of the few things that was. Even throwing all the money in the world at it couldn't stop it. Except that Thanos had a stone that could manipulate time.

"The wizard must have had a plan," he said, trying to infuse it with more hope than he actually felt. "He told me after we rescued him that he'd sacrifice you or me to keep the stone safe. Then he went and flat out handed Thanos the stone to save my life."

"He did what?" Peter squeaked.

He was glad that Peter hadn't been close enough to see it. He'd lost sight of the kid in all the chaos. "That's how I got this little flesh wound. Grape Crush didn't take too kindly to the fact I made him bleed."

"He said he saw one future where we win."

"Hate to break it to you, but I don't think this is it."

"Maybe it is." Tony couldn't believe it, but there was honest to God hope warbling in the boy's voice, and for just a second the pain in his chest eased. "Maybe we had to lose the battle to win the war. Or maybe you were too important to die there, so Doctor Strange had to give up the time stone to save you."

"Maybe, kid. Just a shame he didn't have time to fill us in on the plan before he disappeared."

"What was his name?" Peter asked.

"Doctor Strange," Tony said quizzically, because the kid had just said it.

"Not his superhero name," the kid clarified. "His real name."

Tony chuckled. It was almost like the man was predestined for a ridiculous fate, with a name like his. "Doctor Stephen Strange."

"Oh. I thought—"

"He was quite the accomplished surgeon before he ruined his hands and ran off to Hogwarts or whatever."

"Did you know him?"

"Nah, just had FRIDAY google him. Karen can do that for you too, you know."

"I'm glad he bartered for your life." Peter said it in a rush, as if it was something shameful, and maybe it was, but it stole all the air from Tony's lungs. "I probably shouldn't be, because of half the universe and all. But I'm glad I didn't have to watch another—watch you die."

Tony had done more than google Peter, so he knew all about his parents' early deaths and his uncle's tragic demise. But the kid was so exuberant he'd never stopped to wonder about the scars those losses might leave behind.

"Hey, don't worry about me. I'm going to be fine."

"Do you promise?"

He wanted to, with every cell in his body, but he could feel some of those cells starting to shut down. He was in a bad way, and they were God knows how far from Earth, and if he made this promise and broke it that would be far worse than never making it at all.

But Peter had been drifting apart yet still held himself together. Tony wanted to think that his arms had helped somehow, anchoring him, but it was probably pure self-preservation. Either way, he had not left Tony alone on an alien planet with his guilt and a growling robot.

So he would not leave the kid.

"I promise."

"I was there when Uncle Ben died." Peter's voice, which had been infused with fear and anxiety and hope in turns, just sounded hollow now. Tony wished the kid wasn't out of reach, because he was struck with a need to rest a hand on his arm or card his fingers through his hair. "I had my powers but I didn't know how to use them yet. I could have done something, but I didn't. Uncle Ben died because I was scared, and I swore that would never happen again. That's why I had to follow Doctor Strange onto that spaceship. It didn't matter that it was dangerous. And I had to come back after you sent me away. Because what if you needed back up?"

It was like the kid had punched him in the gut, which was surely not his intention. Because Tony didn't deserve such selfless devotion, and the kid was so damn good the world would surely eat him alive.

"It's not your job to look after me."

"Who else is going to do it then?"

Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, he could have listed. But he couldn't bring himself to contradict Peter's claim, as much as he knew he should. The kid had no reason to be so attached. He'd been distant – literally – and condescending, and he'd sent all sorts of mixed messages about whether a teenager should fight crime, being okay with it when it suited his own ends and less forgiving when the kid had launched his own crusade.

Tony had even less reason to feel an echoing attachment, except that the kid was noble and heroic and charming. Almost painfully earnest. Dorky and unashamed to admit it. Absolutely brilliant, but not at all conceited.

Already a better man than Tony would ever be.

"Everyone deserves to have someone look after them."

Peter said it like some universal truth. Tony had never found it to be so. But there was something alluring in the thought.

He wasn't expecting to hear the sharp rasp of a hitched breath. The kid's moods were mercurial tonight. Tony was more accustomed to vacillating between misery, anger, boredom, and drunken stupor. "What will I do if we get back and Aunt May isn't – is –"

"You'll come to the compound with me," he answered without even thinking about it. It was only as it sunk in, a second later, that he realized how right it felt. "There's always a place for you there. No matter what." Peter turned on his side and the hammock swung. Their eyes met in the darkness, and Tony hoped Peter understood would he could not quite bring himself to say. _Everyone deserves to have someone look after them._

"If May isn't there, we'll just have to get her back." For the first time he truly thought it might be possible. This kid had lost too much already, and Tony would be damned before he lets him lose anything else for good. "But I have a feeling she's waiting for you to get your little spider-butt home. There's no way I'm getting out of the tongue lashing she's going to give me for taking you on a field trip to outer space without a permission slip. Frankly I'm terrified."

The sound of Peter's soft chuckle carried him off to sleep.

 _The kid was going to be all right._

* * *

He woke to a string of half muffled curses, and found Robo Girl peering at him in the dark. "Come to smother me in my sleep?" he quipped, but the words barely made it past his throat. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out, but the rest hadn't helped. Each breath was a struggle, and his chest was a pool of agony.

But he would not die in front of the kid.

He turned his head just enough to glimpse Peter out of the corner of his eye. He'd taken off his iron spider suit, and was curled in a ball in his t-shirt and jeans.

"You don't need any help to hasten your death."

Whatever this thing was she had no time for bullshit. Normally Tony would have appreciated that, but in that moment he would have been glad for a few words of optimism.

"How close are we to Earth?"

"Not close enough."

"Can you gun it a little?" At the skeptical look she shot him he tried to elucidate. "Speed it up? Go faster so I don't die before we get there."

"We're already going as fast as we can. We don't have much fuel."

"Of course not. That's just how this day is going." He tried taking a deep breath to steady himself and immediately regretted it, hissing the searing pain out through his teeth. Blackness lurked at the edge of his vision, as final as a swirl of dust on an alien planet.

Unless it wasn't.

He watched Peter shiver in his spider nest, and the darkness receded a bit.

"Is there a blanket on this trash heap?"

Robo Smurf stared at his flushed face and sweat soaked skin, obviously aware that his fever had sunk in.

"Not for me. For the kid."

"You care for your son," she said, as if it was a concept too foreign to be believed.

"He's not my son." The immediate denial was instinctive, meant to protect him from the split second that his feverish mind allowed him to imagine it were true.

Science fairs and driving lessons. Father son patrols. Graduation.

Peter dying in his arms because of his own recklessness.

 _Lies_.

"Thanos was no father of mine, but he claimed it for so long it became true."

But Peter was not his to claim. He had an aunt who loved him fiercely – God Tony hoped he had an aunt – and the memory of two loving, normal parents.

"Pardon me for not taking parenting advice from a grape who killed one daughter and turned the other into a killer robot," he snapped.

Just as he'd intended, Nebula stalked out without another word.

Every shake of his shoulder was agony. Tony groaned, hoping that would be enough to make it stop.

"Mister Stark. Mister Stark. Mister Stark!"

He would not face his father today.

"Tony, please. Come on Tony. You promised! We're almost home. You promised. Please."

He had promised something, hadn't he? It had seemed important at the time. But now all that was important was rest and oblivion and …

He felt a sharp crack across his face. His eyes opened quite against his will. The blue downer scowled at him while Peter peered from behind her shoulder, white-faced and draped in a gray blanket.

"Your unconsciousness was scaring the child."

"Sorry," he slurred, scared by the effort it took. There was fluid in his lungs, and it was probably blood.

"Sorry about your face," Peter chattered. "You wouldn't wake up."

He tried to string together a few words of sarcasm or comfort, but couldn't manage it.

"You gotta hang on, Tony. We're almost home. I can see Earth out the window!"

Home was good. Being close was good. He would not die on the kid.

They were cutting this to the _wire_.

"I need landing coordinates. And there's a transmission coming from your planet."

"Lemme hear it."

With Peter's help he managed to stagger to the cockpit and collapse in the co-pilot seat. The blue one flipped a switch.

He was not expecting to hear Thor's aggravatingly booming and lilting voice that made women swoon.

"People of Asgard, if you can hear me. This is your king. We are in dire need of your aid. Midgard is willing to shelter you. Valkyrie, if you can hear me, your rage and your fire have never been more needed."

At least the blue one seemed not to be impressed as she cut the transmission. "It's on a loop. The child says you know this king?"

"God of thunder. King of Asgard. Low IQ. Big hammer. More Instagram followers than me, which is frankly insulting. Is there a way to talk back?"

They were not alone. Thor was alive, and there were surely others.

In a few hours he would still be one of them.

The alien handed him a com which looked suspiciously like a walkie talkie. The whole ship gave off a weird 80's vibe. Not very Star Trek at all.

He tried to clear his throat and almost succeeding in hacking up a lung while Peter clutched at his shoulder and begged him to breath.

"I'm all right," he finally lied, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He hoped there wouldn't be any press when he touched down. He so wasn't ready for a photo op.

"Hey Point Break," he crowed into the com. "I'm not from Asgard but I've got a whole lot of rage against a certain grape-face. Think you could use the help?"

"Christ, Tony." Rhodey's voice crackling across the intercom left him light headed with relief. "You've been gone for days. We thought you were dead."

Days? Aunt May _was_ going to kill him. And Pepper.

Pepper.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, man. Though speaking of death, I may have gotten a teensy bit stabbed. If you could send the best doctor you can find in twenty minutes to meet me at the Compound I'd really appreciate it."

"We're not at the Compound."

"Okay. Where are you?"

"Wakanda."

"The Lion King's place? What are you doing there?"

"It's a long story. Though man, this place is really something."

"I don't have time for long stories right now. Think you could send that doctor?"

Rhodey paused, and Tony could feel the life draining from him with every breath. It would be really unfair, to die this close to home.

"You should come here. There's someone that can patch you up better than anyone back home. We'll wait for you."

He wanted to go back to New York, where surely Doctor Cho could save the day – if Doctor Cho wasn't ash in the wind. But he trusted Rhodey.

"Send the coordinates." He waited a beat before he could bring himself to ask the next question. "Who's left?"

Rhodey waited his own beat, as if he too had to steel himself against the harsh reality. "Bruce. Thor. Nat." Another pause. "Cap. And no lie – a talking racoon. It's crazy. Half the world just went up in smoke. We failed."

"Hold it together, Rhodey. We're gonna fix this." The kid's grip on his shoulder tightened. "Get me a doc. I'll see you soon."

"I know that damn racoon," the space smurf fumed, and Peter and Tony shared a desperate, hysterical chuckle.

There was one fear he still had to face, and it was worse than the infection he could already feel raging in his body. He hadn't been brave enough to ask Rhodey and make him the bearer of bad news.

Earth was coming up hot, so as Nebula retreated to enter the coordinates Tony touched his watch. The cheerful sound of FRIDAY coming back online seemed like it was from another life.

"Welcome back, Boss. We were all concerned at your prolonged absence. But your vital signs are distressing."

"Forget my vital signs." He certainly didn't want the kid to hear them. "Call Pepper."

"Calling Mrs. Potts."

He didn't even have time to panic before she answered halfway through the first ring. "Oh thank God, Tony."

"Not sure God had anything to do with it." But he could almost believe in a higher power, just for a second, because he still had Pepper and Peter and Rhodey. "But it's real good to hear your voice, Pep."

"Tell me you turned that ship around and are coming home, Tony. Please."

"Crashed that one. But commandeered another. I'm almost back. But I've got to make a little detour first. Apparently Africa has the best healthcare in the world now – who knew."

"Tony, why do you need a doctor?"

"Got a little stabbed. Nothing to worry about. Just a flesh wound." _A gaping, oozing flesh wound._

"Don't you die on me now, Tony. Please."

There was a waiver in her voice but she didn't crumble. She had iron in her veins, his Pepper.

"I won't, Pep. I made a promise." He'd made a promise to her, long before he'd made one to Peter, but he'd never been any good at keeping it.

He wanted to change that.

"Something happened while you were gone. All these people they just … disappeared."

It hadn't been nearly as peaceful as that. He wasn't going to correct her. "I know. We didn't stop him … yet."

"Just come home first." It was an order, and she was the only one allowed to do that. Everything within him swelled with his incomprehensible love for her, but it was too much. He wasn't alone. He could not break.

"We're getting ready to land. I've got to go. I'll call you when I'm out of surgery."

"Wait. One more thing. May Parker has been calling. Peter's missing. Do you know where he is?"

He was _so glad_ he had an acceptable answer to that question. "The Spiderling's with me. He's fine."

Said Spiderling, who'd been eavesdropping on the entire private conversation because Tony's earpiece had been decimated with his suit, gripped his shoulder so hard he could feel it in his bone and shouted, "Aunt May? Is she okay? Have your heard from her since-?"

The silence was all the answer Tony needed. "Call her back and tell her I'll have the kid home as soon as we get him another stamp on his passport. Love ya Pep."

He turned as soon as he disconnected the call, and watched Peter carefully through bloodshot eyes. Peter swiped away a tear, quick like he was swatting a fly, but he met Tony's gaze with a steely intensity and did not crumble.

Tony pried his hand from his shoulder, but did not let it go as he lowered it.

"You okay, champ?"

Peter nodded, and Tony could see the moment he started to believe it. The kid could say whatever he wanted about how he was coping, but he was tough.

"I don't have a passport," he said, and Tony wanted to laugh at his earnest concern. "Is that going to be a problem?"

Tony tugged Peter into his side and played it off as if he needed a steadying force. "I know the king. I don't think he'll make us go through customs.

* * *

Wakanda was unlike anything Tony had ever seen, and he'd been to outer space. If he hadn't been dying it might have been wondrous to see Earth unfold before him, the blue and green taking on definition as his perspective narrowed. The kid was clearly in awe beside him, wide eyed and muttering exclamations of wonder he seemed altogether unaware of. As they hovered over Africa he thought someone had made a mistake, for he saw nothing but savannah, and surely an antelope wasn't going to patch him up. But then reality shifted, as if with one of Thanos's stones, for one second he saw only grass and then the next a city rose up before them, beautiful in a way he did not think cities could be. There were shining towers and floating trains, and a vibrancy New York City did not hold.

"How did they not teach us about this at school?" Peter asked, and Tony figured the kid must not have been following the news.

Tony had seen the UN footage, and knew a place that could engineer the Blank Panther had to be more than it seemed. But this was something truly impressive.

As soon as the world wasn't in crisis, he was definitely going to find an excuse to come back here and geek out about this. Maybe bring Peter along, so they could take a ride on the floating train together.

"Terrans are not accustomed to visitors," their pilot said as she touched them down much more smoothly than he had managed on Titan with the kid and the wizard. "Perhaps I should leave you and go."

"You saved us. You're under our protection. Right, Tony?"

He was impressed by how quickly Peter leapt in to defend her. He shouldn't have been surprised. Because wasn't Spiderman the defender of the little guy?

Not that Nebula was little. Or weak. Or as friendly at the old ladies that bought Peter sandwiches when he retrieved their purses or helped them across the street.

Peter nudged him, and Tony realized he might have been drifting. "Right, Tony?"

"Right. These are friends. Nothing to worry about."

It was a good thing that Peter had super strength, because Tony had no choice but to lean his full weight on the kid because his legs would barely move. Putting any weight on them was clearly out of the question.

"We're almost there, Tony. Don't give up on me now."

He wondered at what point in this trip Peter had become the adult in this relationship. "You did good, champ. You did real good."

"That better not be a goodbye speech."

He might still be a kid, but he was quick as a whip.

So Tony fought through the haze in his mind as they stepped into sunlight that seemed too bright for the pallor that had fallen over the world. They'd landed on top of a great tower that overlooked the magnificent city. The grasslands surrounding it were blighted by the remains of a great battle.

No good place had been safe from Thanos.

There was a small crowd waiting for them on the landing pad, and Tony was overwhelmed when they all started talking at once.

"I did not know Midgard bred warriors so young," Thor boomed, just as Rhodey stepped forward with a disapproving glare.

"Christ, Tony, you brought a kid into space with you?"

"I'm sixteen," Peter bristled, trying to pitch his voice lower and succeeding only in sounding like he'd swallowed a frog.

"Not helping our case, champ. We didn't know the ship was going back into space." Tony tried to stand on his own two feet and failed.

"Mister Stark sent me away. I chose to come back." He couldn't believe the kid was defending him. He'd have to buy him a really fun toy when all this was over.

"The little stowaway more than earned his stripes. Meet the newest Avenger. Team, Peter. Peter, team."

He tried to tilt his head to clarify the introductions, but the action threw him off kilter. He stumbled, and as Peter adjusted to compensate he felt someone very solid grab him by the shoulder and haul him up.

Of course it would be Steve fucking Rogers.

"Tony," he said, his deep voice wavering with all sorts of touchy-feely things that Tony absolutely could not process right then, surrounding by all the friends he had left in the world while he was so clearly dying. He hadn't quite been able to face Steve when Bruce had told him the world was about to end but the threat had still seemed distant. He certainly couldn't do it now.

But the universe wasn't giving him a choice. "Captain," he said, wishing that his suit wasn't broken so he could just fly away.

"Captain America," Peter breathed, a puddle of fanboy awe, and Tony felt just a tiny bit betrayed. "Wow. Nice to meet you. Formally, I mean. There was that time in Germany. I'm sorry for stealing your shield."

Cap smiled, that wholesome American apple pie smile that had always gotten under Tony's skin. "Don't worry about it, son. Peter Parker, I presume?"

"Wow, Captain America knows my name."

"You can call me Steve."

"Kinda dying here," Tony interrupted. "Maybe you could continue this conversation after someone gives me some really good drugs."

"Sorry," Peter and Steve said simultaneously, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"I thought I was going to have to break up your banter." The lilting voice came from a dark skinned stranger standing towards the back of his welcoming committee. She held her chin high, and her entire posture screamed authority. But it seemed to Tony that she could not be much older than Peter. "I need to get to work."

"Wait, you're my doctor?" He turned to Rhodey. "Is this really the best time for Dougie Houser, Africa edition?"

"The last broken white boys I fixed were not awake to be so skeptical. You'll be in fine company soon, Tony Stark."

It was too late to ask for another opinion, anyway. As Peter and Steve dragged his broken ass inside, Tony gave into the darkness.

* * *

 **I'm a little late to the party, but these two just would not let me alone since I saw Infinity War. I've read two many angsty reiterations of** _ **that scene**_ **and not enough fix-its, so here's something hopeful and borderline fluffy to hold us over.**

 **Two more parts to come. And I'd love to hear what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

It had taken Uncle Ben a long time to die.

Not according to the EMTs, who declared that it happened too fast. That he'd lost too much blood by the time they arrived. That there was nothing they could do.

But to Peter, who had sat there clutching his hand, absolutely powerless as he listened to the blood drain out of him and his heart and lungs crawl to a stop, a few minutes had seemed like an eternity.

Tony had been dying for _hours_.

Peter hadn't been able to drown it out, the terrible wheeze in his chest and the way his heart was completely out of rhythm. He'd grown paler and weaker and Peter still hadn't been able to do anything, besides beg like a child and make him promise not to die.

He'd made the same request of Uncle Ben, sobbing like a baby, over and over. "Please don't go." It hadn't done any good. He'd just clutched at his hand, smiled through the pain, told Peter he was proud of him. He would always love him, he had said.

Always had ended seconds later.

Tony hadn't said all that much, though Peter had rambled and rambled, trying to keep him alert and distracted. He'd dozed a bit on the spaceship, short power naps to stave off the exhaustion, but he woke every time to a wet, garbled breath or a pained cry. Eventually he realized it was better just to keep watch.

And now that Tony's heartbeat had been silenced behind the thick walls he couldn't hear through, Peter was terrified that Tony's heartbeat had been silenced forever. That the last memory of him Peter would ever have was Captain America carrying him through the lab doors after he had blacked out, blood flowing freely from his side, head lolled back. Helpless, like no super hero was supposed to be.

That he had died alone, when Peter had been just barely out of reach.

Which was stupid, because he wasn't alone. The doctor was there, and Captain America was there, and they'd been friends long before Mister Stark had ever caught wind that a punk kid from Queens had decided to fling webs and fight crime.

Not that they'd been friends in Germany, when Mister Stark had asked _him_ , nobody Peter Parker, to help on a mission of personal and national importance. They hadn't been friends afterwards, when Captain America had disappeared after being labeled a rogue fugitive, and Tony had returned to his Compound and his spotlight.

Peter was still mad they hadn't let him inside the operating room. He wasn't bothered by blood and he could have helped by telling the doc how Tony's vitals were doing.

He supposed they had instruments for that.

It still stung.

He'd been left, staring at a locked door, with a motley crew of Avengers in what should have been one of the best moments of his life and all he felt was anxious.

And sick. And terrified.

Colonel Rhodes had been the one to come up to him and place a hand on his shoulder. He'd nearly jumped out of his skin before spinning toward the man. One look at his face revealed that Peter had moved too fast. The soldier stepped back, his arms out, placating.

"Easy, Peter. It's just me."

"Colonel Rhodes." They'd met on the way to Germany, and ran into each other a few times afterwards at the Compound, when Tony let him mess around in the lab instead of mixing dangerous chemicals under his desk in class, but they had nothing in common besides Tony.

"I told you it's Rhodey." His smile was more like a grimace. Peter didn't think he could do it.

 _We've fought aliens together in outer space, kid. I think you can call me Tony._

Not until he _knew_.

"What happened up there?"

"Thanos. Mister Stark got stabbed." It was barely an explanation, and no help at all. He could see the moment Colonel Rhodes brushed him off as a useless kid, so he tried again, forcing himself to use the words that so rarely failed him.

"We had a plan. Doctor Strange said we had one shot out of a million to win. We lured Thanos to some planet with the Time Stone, and we ran into this weird group of people – and not people – who were after Thanos too. We had him trapped and we almost got the gauntlet off, but then one of the people freaked out because Thanos had killed his girlfriend or something, and Thanos got away. He was really pissed. Iron Man fought him, but Thanos stabbed him." Peter considered stopping there, to avoid the disapproval the rest of his story would surely cause, but he knew that he couldn't. Because there had to be a _reason_ , and Tony might not ever be able to tell it.

"He was dying. But Doctor Strange traded his life for the Time Stone."

The protests he expected did not come. Colonel Rhodes paused for a moment, and then asked, "Who the hell is Doctor Strange?"

"I think he's a wizard. Or a magician. Also a real doctor. I dunno. He's the one we followed on to the spaceship, because he had the Time Stone in his necklace."

"I crashed into his house," said a man Peter didn't recognize, who was graying at his temples. "After I got beamed off Thor's ship. He was a magician, crazy as that is to believe."

"Everything about our lives now is crazy to believe." The Colonel scrubbed a hand over his face. "Where's this magical doctor now?"

"Dust." Peter wished he could control how his voice caught, but it was impossible not to picture it, all those people flaking apart and drifting away, and it was happening to him too and he felt it felt it felt it. "Those other guys we met up with too. Only me and Tony and Nebula were left."

He could hear how everyone shuddered at his words. Breathes hitched and hearts sped up and Captain America's knuckles clicked as he clenched his hands into fists.

"Who is this Galaxy Girl?" someone finally asked, and holy crow it was Thor, though his hair was short and his eyes didn't match.

Thor had always been, embarrassingly, his aunt's favorite Avenger.

Peter scanned the room but he could not hear her gears turn and knew it was pointless. He had not seen her follow him out of the ship, but he'd been focused on Tony's rapidly deteriorating state. She'd been understandably nervous about whether she'd be accepted on Earth, but he hoped she was still on the roof, waiting. Space would be awfully lonely with only a thirst for vengeance for company. She had been short tempered and rude, but she'd covered him with a blanket while he slept and she could have just left them on the planet full of ash but instead she'd gotten them home _hopefully_ on time.

"She's Grape Face's daughter." He hadn't meant to say it. It wasn't particularly clever, but he felt a bit like Tony as everyone gaped at him, and he finally understood. Because it was hard to be as afraid when he was thinking of something ridiculous. "She hates him as much as we do, or even more. She brought us home. She's a friend. Even if she doesn't act like one. Tony asked her to stay and fight with us."

"She's also blue," he added, realizing that might be relevant. "She's hopefully waiting in the ship."

Colonel Rhodes looked at the locked door behind Peter and then sighed. It was the sigh of someone who'd just finished four back to back AP exams or witnessed the death of half the universe. "I better go make her feel welcome."

"I too shall go," Thor offered. "My brother was blue, though he hid it well. I shall not be shocked by her appearance, no matter how monstrous it may appear to mere mortals."

"It's not that monstrous," Peter said, but no one listened. He scanned the room as Colonel Rhodes and Thor left it. It was some kind of lobby, but no one sat behind the gunmetal reception desk. Peter worried if he got too close he'd see a pile of ash. The far wall was all glass, and through it there was both a wonderous city and more grass than he'd seen in all his life. He'd never pictured Africa like this. He could stand by that window and keep his mind busy for hours, but he didn't want to see the remnants of battle, the smoke and the ash and the bodies, and the mourning of those left behind. He could hear it when the Colonel opened the door, just for a few seconds, a whole nation's voices raised in some chilling upswell of pain.

There were three chairs set against the wall, as if this really was a waiting room, although he didn't think it was a hospital. It was far too empty for that. They were much too high up to be practical. Peter sunk into the chair closest to the locked door and settled in to wait.

He had never been very patient. His powers made it worse, because unless he had something to focus on the sensory input was overwhelming. He was all right as long as he had his phone – all he needed was CandyCrush or YouTube to keep him suitably distracted. But his phone was in a backpack stashed behind some dumpster in New York, several thousand miles away. He didn't even have anything in his pockets.

He felt an urge to climb the wall – literally – and he was among the only company in the entire world where that wouldn't be unacceptably weird, but he forced himself to stay put. The others drifted away without a word and Peter forced himself to sit, his head braced in his hands, searching for a heartbeat he could not find through the ridiculously airtight door.

The force of that door being thrust open startled him upright. Captain America strode through, saw Peter, and sunk down beside him.

"How is he?" Captain America looked so defeated that Peter feared his answer, but he couldn't bear the uncertainty any longer.

"He's stable. Shuri kicked me out. Said I was hovering."

The terrible pressure in Peter's chest loosened, just a little. Stable was okay. It wasn't great. It meant "out of the woods now" not "out of the woods always" but Iron Man was strong and if he'd made it this far he'd probably be fine in a not-hospital and besides Tony had _promised_.

"You got him here in time. Shuri said if it had been much longer he wouldn't have made it. But she's patching him up. She's a bit of a miracle worker. And Tony's a tough old bastard." The Captain shot him a quick, guilty look, as if Peter had never heard that word before. "Don't tell him I said that." He huffed out a labored breath. "Or go ahead. We could all use a laugh."

Captain America was _huge._ Peter hadn't noticed that in Germany, because everything had been so new and exciting and his perspective was kind of skewed from above. But he was at least twice as broad as Peter, and Peter felt like a dwarf sitting next to him in these weird but strangely comfortable chairs. But he wasn't as red white and blue as he was in all his PSAs; now his uniform just looked faded. Peter _would not_ dwell on the grime he was covered in, and who it might have been, yesterday.

He was also sporting a pretty impressive beard. It made him look older though, ragged and weary. Peter supposed he was old. He'd been frozen for decades, and the age was finally starting to show.

Peter had a million questions he'd wanted to ask him once, back when he was certain he'd never have a chance. _What was it like to wake up after sixty years? What bit of technology was hardest to accept? What had made him willing to test out the super serum?_ And later, when he was not quite so young: _How did you adjust to suddenly being so strong and so fast? Did you ever look in the mirror and not recognize yourself?_

And then, finally, _What happened to lead up to Germany?_

But none of those questions seemed to matter much, now. Talking would pass the time, but Peter just wanted to brood in peace.

"You should get some rest," Captain America suggested, his voice kind but unfathomably tired.

Peter shook his head. "No, I'm good."

"He'd want you to take care of yourself."

But the thought of leaving the room nearly sent Peter into a panic. He couldn't even fathom standing by the window. "I can't leave him. Not until I know he's okay." Sleep held little appeal. If he tried to rest now he'd surely have nightmares, and he didn't need the other Avengers hearing that, not before he had a chance to prove himself. They didn't need to see him as any more of a child than they already did.

"I'm glad Tony had someone to watch out for him."

Peter studied him through a sideways glance. He sounded almost wistful. "Are you guys over your stupid fight now?"

Captain America exhaled like it could expel all his troubles, casting them off onto the wind. "It wasn't stupid. But I hope so."

Peter hoped so too. It had all seemed so cool when the Avengers first assembled. Peter had pictured them all hanging around the Tower, gods and super soldiers and geniuses, best of friends and nearly unstoppable. That was long before he met Tony and realized how lonely he could be, with his wealth and his security detail and the sunglasses that didn't hide much of anything. He'd need friends – if he survived – to make any of this okay.

They sat in awkward silence for awhile until Captain America took his leave, clapping Peter on the shoulder and apologizing – unnecessarily – for Germany.

Peter didn't realize until he left how much it had helped to have someone else's breathing to focus on and an excuse to hold it together. He was exhausted, but he dare not close his eyes for more than few seconds. All the adrenaline of the past few days – wizards and aliens and new tech and space and Thanos and Tony and ash ash ash – had worn away, and the crash was threatening to drag him under. He felt shaky and weak, and almost too nauseous to sleep. The worst was the memories that assaulted him when he let his guard down – sobbing in Tony's arms as he felt himself being unmade, and all the terrible moments after when he realized Tony might be the one to die.

He missed May. She would know what to do. She always did, when he came home battered or traumatized or just brimming with standard high school angst. She'd wrap him in the fluffiest blanket from the back of the couch, not caring whether he was cold or not, and then set about trying to make him one of his favorite meals. They'd have a good laugh when she failed, and she'd order too much takeout and they'd eat it in front of the TV, laughing at cheesy sitcoms. She always knew when he needed a hug or a kiss on the forehead, and even when she was mad she'd tell him how much she loved him.

He'd never seen her as mad as the day she found him in his Spiderman suit. She'd let out an impressive string of profanity that would put even Mister Stark to shame, and she'd made him explain himself: _what had ever made him come up with the idiotic idea to put on a mask and throw himself in front of criminals, and being a superhero wasn't glamorous, it was dangerous, and they were adults with resources and death wishes and no aunts to worry sick at home._ So he had told her, about Uncle Ben and the guilt he was trying to outswing, and how much the neighborhood needed him and how he couldn't just sit back and do nothing when he was made to help now. Something in her face had softened, and she'd sat real close and laid her hand on his shoulder, and she'd grounded him for two months and cut the data from his phone, but she'd let him go on patrols as long as he promised to be home before 3am and wake her if he needed anything.

He didn't like to do it. But there were times, when he couldn't save everyone, that he would come home in tears and knock on May's door, and she would make tea and ask him what happened. She never judged him, even when he made a mistake, and she told him she was _proud_. It had been easier, after the Vulture, not to carry the weight of his secret anymore.

But he hated to worry her. She told him it was okay. That the mothers of fire fighters and police officers worried, but that didn't mean they stopped doing their jobs. "I just need you to come home to me," she'd said one night as she stitched up a bullet wound to his shoulder as if it were a tear in a t-shirt. "As long as you come home I'll make everything okay. I can't stand the thought of you hurt somewhere with no one to take care of you. If something happens I need to _know_."

Now he had been gone for days, and he knew she'd spent every second wondering if he was dead in an alley somewhere. Wondering if she'd have to ask that question for the rest of her life.

And maybe she had.

Maybe it had taken just a few moments for all the warmth and spunk and love that was Aunt May to dissolve in a swirl of dust. Maybe she'd realized what was happening just long enough for her to think she was about to see him again.

But if there was any type of afterlife waiting, Peter wasn't there.

The thought of her still searching but _gone_ left him swirling with a dread even worse than he'd felt on Titan. He needed her to be okay, because how could he put one foot in front of the other if she wasn't? How could he face the end of half the world if he was well and truly alone?

But everyone had lost people. Why would he be spared?

He never called her Mom. But there was something about her name that evoked the same feeling, the same primary consonant allowing him to pretend what he'd never voice aloud out of respect for the parents he remembered less and less. He loved her fiercely, and she resonated that love with an equal tenacity that was even more special because she'd chosen to turn her nephew into her son. Peter knew he was lucky, because he could have ended up in foster care somewhere and instead he'd gotten May – and Ben – and more love than his sad six year old self had known what to do with.

They had saved him, and he had not saved Ben. But he would save May. If she was gone then he would stand with the Avengers and do absolutely anything to undo Thanos's snap.

He was so zoned out that he started when someone sat beside him. "I'm not going anywhere," he said sullenly, needing to save all his fight for Thanos.

"Wasn't going to ask you to," Black Widow drawled, and Peter couldn't help but look at her. There was no situation on Earth where a woman like this spoke to Peter Parker. Yet here she was, bombshell looks and deadly grace, and he wasn't even dressed like Spiderman, just a sixteen year old kid.

She handed him a bottle of water and what was probably a granola bar. "You should eat and hydrate. You'll need to keep your strength up to watch over Tony. Take it from me, he doesn't make it easy."

He didn't want to be interested. But there was something in her wry tone that hinted at a story, and he needed something to keep him distracted so he stopped seeing May flake away in front of him. "What do you mean?"

"SHIELD assigned me to watch over him once. Figure out if he was trying to kill himself. That was one of the most aggravating missions I've ever been on, and that's saying something."

"He wasn't, though?" Peter asked, alarmed.

"No," she assured. "He was dying, though. That made him more of a reckless jackass that usual." She must have seen the way he went pale, even though she didn't seem to be looking at him. "Relax, kid. That was a long time ago, before he got all his arc reactor troubles fixed up. And he's even been working on the jackass thing, though he still has his moments. Pepper must be a saint." Peter could see her pause and tense. "Hopefully still is."

"Miss Potts is okay," Peter assured. "We heard from her before we landed."

"That's good. Tony needs people he cares about to keep him off the deep end." Now she was definitely looking at him, a little too pointedly. "Welcome to the club."

"Uh, thanks?"

"That skepticism is totally justified." Her chuckle was dark and joyless. Peter noticed that at some point she'd shifted her leg so it brushed his, not in a way that was creepy or sexual but perhaps comforting.

Surely the Black Widow didn't do _comforting_?

She took a drink from her own water bottle and Peter devoured the snack within moments, only realizing when the first bite of tasty but unidentifiable oats and berries reached his tongue that he was ravenous. She tossed him another bar and he did not protest.

"Wish he'd wake his lazy ass up, though. It's time to go home."

He had no right to ask who was or wasn't waiting back home so he waited, staring at the foreign characters on the wrapper which seemed to be made of biodegradable cellulose.

"Clint's been calling," she finally said.

"Hawkeye?" Peter guessed.

"Yeah. Yesterday he was home with his wife and three kids. Now it's just him and Lila."

That was like the blast of an alien weapon straight to the gut. He tried desperately not to imagine it and instead thought of May, watching him and Ben fade away.

They had to find a way to fix this.

"The guy's a superdad, but now he's calling Aunt Nat every few hours as if I know how to deal with a confused and distraught eight year old. I have to get back there."

"Can't you just take a jet?"

"How do you know I can fly a jet?"

"Can't you do everything?"

She smirked, and for a minute she didn't look quite so sad. "Right answer. I can. But technically we came on Tony's Quinjet, and he'll want to get back as soon as he is able. We already brought destruction to Wakanda. Doesn't seem right to demand another aircraft too." She blew out a breath which stirred the hair at her temple. She'd been a red head the first time he met her. "I'll wait for a little longer. But he better hurry up and pull through."

She pulled a phone from her pocket and frowned at the screen. "I gotta take this," she said, looking almost apologetic. "Take care of yourself, Peter. We spiders need to stick together." She smirked at him, then left the room without making a sound.

He wished she'd left him a second bottle of water. The back of his hand itched, but he dared not scratch it, because he imagined the skin flaking off and floating away. He could still remember the awful feeling, closer to numbness than pain, of his body literally being unmade and forcing itself back together, his cells in a terrible race against some evil force, as his heart and lungs pounded to keep up and panic skitted through his veins faster than blood.

He had been so sure he was going to die. He hadn't understood how or why, just the way all his senses screamed DANGER all at once as his mind replayed how the aliens had crumbled into nothingness. Then Mister Stark had been there and he hadn't said much of anything – hadn't offered any comforting lies beyond a halfhearted, "you're all right." But his arms had wrapped around him like a vice, and Peter had imagined that the pressure had helped, an external force pressing inwards as he willed himself to stay solid. There had been ragged breath against his skin and a pulse to listen to that was not his own, and when all his senses had quieted Mister Stark had still be there, reminding him to breathe and rubbing his hand across his back.

He hoped, somehow, he'd been able to do the same for Mister Stark. _Tony_ , he'd said, in a voice wrecked by pain. That maybe his childish promise could somehow press in his ruined insides and hold back the blood and help him get by _just a little bit longer_. Because Tony may have been too busy to pay Peter much mind, but he was brilliant and brave and he'd plucked Peter from obscurity, giving him a chance, every once and a while, to make a difference even beyond his neighborhood.

Peter had really thought, when he'd jumped out the window of his school bus, that he'd actually be able to do something. Aliens were attacking _his_ city, and he could not let that stand.

But he had failed. He hadn't been fast or strong enough to get the gauntlet off Thanos, and now half the world was gone including maybe Aunt May and Tony might die and he hadn't been any help at all.

"Your father is going to be all right."

He practically fell out of his chair. The girl who had spoken, who had dark skin and impressive braids and looked roughly his own age, regarded him with a skeptical expression.

For a moment his mind blanked. His father wasn't going to be all right, his father was gone, and oh. Oh. "Mister Stark isn't my father." But that wasn't the important part, and all the fight drained out of him as he sagged with relief. "Is he really okay? Can I see him?"

"He needs his rest. He has been through quite the ordeal. But he spoke of you with his last breath before the sedative kicked in. He asked that I make sure you were all right. Will you sleep if I let you see him?"

"Yes!"

Her smile was wan. She'd lost someone too. "A few minutes only. Follow me."

She led him through that hateful door, unlocked now and no longer an obstacle. Behind it was a lab, not a hospital room, but Peter didn't care how futuristic it looked. All he could see was Tony.

There was color under his skin again, even if he was never so still. Tony fidgeted almost as much as Peter did, shifting his weight or weaving expressions with his hands. Last night in the spaceship he had tossed and turned. Now he wasn't moving at all, but Peter could hear his heartbeat, slow and steady.

"His heart's not beating fast enough," Peter said, pressing his thumb against Tony's wrist so he could feel his pulse thrumming against his skin.

"How can you tell?" the girl asked.

Peter was not in the habit of being honest about such things. But he supposed, if he was an Avenger now, that would have to change.

"I can hear it."

That did not surprise the girl as much as it should have. "So you are part of his merry band of heroes, then?"

"Yeah. Kinda. A late addition. But his heart should be beating faster."

"Technically it should not be beating at all."

Peter grimaced, and waited for the other shoe to fall. What if Tony was in a coma, and he and Black Widow would be stuck in Africa forever—

"I have given him a very strong sedative. His body needs time to heal. It will wear off in twelve hours, and he will wake. It is good that I am very good at what I do. By the time he reached me a traditional doctor could have done very little for him."

"Thank you!" Relief made him lightheaded – or maybe that was low blood sugar. He squeezed Tony's hand and thought that maybe the day was looking up. "You have no idea how much this means to me."

"And why is that, if he is not your father? What does he mean to you?"

The girl tilted her head, staring him down as if he was her prey, and Peter froze just as uselessly as a rabbit in a field. "Uh. He's just…" _a billionaire who's taken a special interest in me. The man who saw me on YouTube and recruited me to help with a personal vendetta. Altogether too brilliant and busy to pay me much mind except when the universe needs saving. My childhood hero, who somehow showed up in my apartment one day and knew what I was._

There was no way to explain it that didn't sound weird and kinda creepy.

"He's like a mentor. With superhero stuff."

God, he sounded sixteen.

"And what would you do for this mentor?"

"Anything! I mean, within reason. I mean, nothing bad. Why are you looking at me like that? This is getting weird now."

"What powers do you have besides super hearing?"

"Why do you want to know?" he demanded. This girl may have saved Tony's life, but her vibe was throwing him off.

He thought, irrationally, of MJ, and then realized there was a 50/50 chance he'd never see her again.

"My brother's powers came from a special herb, but my cousin destroyed it. I have been trying to determine how the herb infused his cells with Vibranium, to see if the effect could be replicated synthetically. Another data point would be helpful."

"Wait – your brother's the Black Panther? The king?"

"My brother was the Black Panther." She tilted her head toward an elaborate urn that sat on one of the lab tables. "That is all that is left of him now."

He wondered if it would ever get less horrible to hear about those who were lost. Part of him hoped not, because if life lost its value they were in even more trouble. "Oh God. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. And here you are, fixing up Tony and—"

"It took my mind off the grief. It is easier to hide away here, studying the dust that was once my brother, than to face the void he has left."

"I'm so, so, sorry."

"It is not your fault."

Except it kind of _was_. "But I didn't stop him. We had Thanos in our grasp. We had this plan and it was _working_. I was pulling on the gauntlet but I couldn't get it off. We failed."

But if his failure scandalized her she didn't show it. "Think that's bad, colonizer? Your friends came here because they thought I could remove the Infinity Stone from the android's forehead without killing him, so that it could be destroyed safely. I knew it was an important task. But no one warned me the cost of failure, or how little time I had. I thought it was a game, to beat the clock and prove how clever I could be. The cost of my defeat was half the universe, and everyone I held dear."

And he thought he'd been having a bad day. He was far too familiar with that chasm of guilt, and how easy it was to drown there. Spiderman made him strong enough to tread water. But it had been his choice to climb out.

And he'd rather pull her out with him then drown there together.

"What Thanos did - it's not on us. Maybe we could have done things differently – but we never meant for anyone to get hurt. We tried to save them." As he said the words he found that he believed them. It hadn't been enough, but they had tried. And they would try again, as long as there was still someone innocent to fight for.

"And those we lost – they wouldn't want us to blame ourselves. They'd want us to remember them, and strive to be better. That's how they'll live on. In our legacy."

He looked at the photo of Ben and May at least once a day, so he wouldn't forget, but the memories weren't as sharp as they used to be. He had mourned a long time, but he knew Ben would be proud, just as he knew that the man had loved him.

"I'm Peter, by the way." He held out a hand, not sure if that was culturally appropriate.

She looked at him like he was crazy, but grasped his hand tightly and shook it once. "Shuri."

"You can run any tests you want. I'm happy to help." He took a deep breath and tied to ignore how uncomfortable he was with that very idea. When his senses had first gone haywire he'd been most terrified of being locked up in a lab, poked and prodded and dissected like a rat.

But he'd never imagined his tormentor as a grieving teenage African princess. And when she acknowledged his offer she looked a little less sad.

"Lay down on that table there."

He did as he was told. The metal was cool against his skin. Now that he wasn't so worried about Tony he was beginning to take in just how insanely cool the place was, with pops of graffiti brightening stone walls which contained tech beyond anything he'd seen even in the Avengers Compound.

"This lab is awesome."

"I designed most of it myself." Pride brought a spark back to her voice. "What powers do you have beside super hearing?"

"All my senses are enhanced. Super speed. Super strength. Super healing."

"Super ego," she finished, pressing something on a control panel. A burst of light radiated from the table, seeming to solidify above him, but before he could feel claustrophobic it evaporated, as scan results projected on a nearby wall.

"Very interesting," she muttered as she stared at the screen.

"What's interesting?" he asked, pushing himself up.

"Un-huh. Lay back down. I'm not finished yet."

"You're pretty bossy," he muttered.

"I did not need super hearing to hear that," she countered, sticking her tongue out at him. "Now tell me, how did you acquire these abilities?"

"I got bit by a spider."

"A spider did this?"

He laughed at the way that he'd caught her off guard. "It was genetically engineered, obviously. Radioactive, I think. I was on this field trip – man I have a bad track record with field trips. We were visiting this lab and I got bit by one of the experiments, and afterwards I started to change."

"I am going to need a sample."

"Do you really have to take blood? I hate needles."

"We are not savages. I just need you to rub this inside your cheek." She handed him a cotton swab.

He blushed as he handed it back, and did not notice the instrument she pressed against his other hand until it was too late.

"Oww," he said as she held what looked like an old school microscope slide under his pricked finger. "You said you didn't need blood."

"I did not say that. I implied it so you would not freak out."

"Smart."

"You have no idea." She placed the slide and the swab on the edge of the table. Images appeared above them almost instantly, crisp and magnified.

"Wait, is the table also a microscope? This is insane."

"So are your cells. Their makeup is different than my brothers, but equally abnormal."

"They look like they're holding together though, right?"

"I do not know what you mean. All cells decay."

"But they're not, like, breaking apart and fusing back together at a rapid rate, or anything?" He held his breath, trying to make sense of what he was seeing on his own, but he'd never paid as much attention in biology as chemistry.

"Why would you ask that question?"

He tried not to remember that terrible feeling, the numb almost pain, but just the thought of it made him break into a cold sweat, and he was glad he was already lying down.

"Your vitals are spiking."

"I thought I was going to die." Sometimes facing his fears made them less scary but voicing this aloud didn't help. "Everyone around us started breaking up and drifting away and they didn't know what was happening. But I knew I was going to die. I could feel it. But I could also feel my body fighting it. I just want to know if it really stopped. Or if it could still catch up to me if I let my guard down."

"I have no baseline to compare to." Shuri's voice wavered, ever so slightly, and Peter worried. He did not want to die here, in the coolest place he'd ever seen, any more than he had on an alien planet that did not live up to expectations. "But I have spent hours staring at what is left of my brother, trying to understand. Disintegration was catastrophic on a molecular level, and from what I've been told, near instantaneous. Your body would have to wage quite a war to fight that. From what I can see, your cells are at peace."

"So I'm okay?"

"You are victorious. And very brave."

"I don't feel brave," he admitted, sitting up so he could draw his knees up to his chest and wrap his arms around them. Despite Shuri's assurances he still felt like he had to hold himself together.

She sat down beside him, her legs swinging off the table. "I always thought that I was. My brother was the hero, but I could help him face any obstacle, and I did not worry. But now I am hiding here, because as soon as I step out of this building I must face the truth that I am queen. My people will need their queen to fix what has been broken, and I want that more than anything. But I am terrified that I will fail them."

Peter didn't know what he could possibly say to that, or how he'd gotten the girl to open up. But he thought of the Black Widow's leg brushing his, and how the touch had been grounding, and he uncurled one arm and laid it on the table between them, hoping he wouldn't do something taboo and make the whole situation worse.

He spent a few awkward seconds wondering before her hand clasped over his.

"The Council will say that I should cede the throne to M'Baku, if he still lives. They may be right. I was not trained for this. I never wished to be queen. M'Baku is strong. He challenged for the throne before, and he might be a good leader. But the throne is all I have left of my brother. Of my family. It seems wrong to give it away."

"I think you'll make a great queen," he said. "If anyone is smart enough to figure out how to put the pieces back together, it's you."

"If I could recreate the herb, then I would be able to commune with my ancestors, and see if my brother was among them. I could ask him what I should do."

"What do you think he would say?"

She blinked, and he could see the tears hovering on her eyelashes, but they did not fall. "He would tell me that I could do anything I put my mind to, but it was up to me to decide."

"Seems like he was a pretty smart guy too."

"Not nearly as smart as me," she said, "but a very good man."

They sat in silence for awhile as Peter let her compose herself. When she turned to him her hand tightened around his. "Do you have family waiting for you back in America?"

He blew out a stuttering breath. "I don't know. It was just me and my Aunt, but I was in space when it happened and she's back in Queens. Hopefully."

"And no one thought to get you a phone? Honestly! Earth's mightiest heroes they may be, but not the brightest." She jumped off the table and dug around in a nearby drawer, handing him some cross between a phone and a tablet. "Call her. She should not need to worry a second longer. Nor should you."

He hesitated, fear surging inside him like a wave. Not knowing at all was better than knowing she was gone, because it let him hold on to hope. If he called and she didn't pick up he'd have to face the fact that Tony was all he had left. That he'd been orphaned again. And the cost of his failure had once more been someone he loved.

But Shuri was going to be queen.

And he was Spiderman.

He could do this.

He dialed the number with shaking fingers, and was shocked when a window projected from the phone, declaring that a video call was trying to connect.

"My aunt doesn't know how to use Facetime," he said, which had always been a joke between them, because Peter could build computers out of things he found in dumpsters and May could barely master the basics of technology.

"For this call she will not have to."

It rang too long, each second excruciating, and Peter imagined the phone lying abandoned on the floor of a dusty, empty apartment. "Pick up, pick up, pick up, _please_ May," he begged under his breath, overwhelmed by just how strongly he needed her.

And then the square above the screen lit to a weird side view of his kitchen, and the vague mumbling through the speakers was more beautiful than a symphony or the first swell of Star Wars. "Now you work. What's this?"

"May," he shouted. The projected image tumbled and went black as his aunt dropped the phone.

"Shit," she muttered, and Peter barked out a laugh, giddy and hysterical. She was okay. SHE WAS OKAY. "Shit. Peter is that you? Hold on. Please don't be me losing my mind."

"Just pick up the phone, May," he said, the changing view as she fumbled with it making him a bit dizzy. "Hold it out in front of you."

And when she finally did and he could finally see her, pale and trembling, hair unbrushed and eyes so wide his laughter turned into tears, and he smiled through the sobs that threatened to tear through him.

"Oh God Peter, look at you. Is this real? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's me. I'm okay." For the first time since Titan he meant it. "This is real, I promise."

"Where are you? Wherever it is I'll come get you. Just hang tight."

He could feel her love through the phone and it washed over him, taping back together all the pieces of his heart that had still been flaking away, even after his body had stabilized. "I think I'm going to have to find another ride. I'm in Wakanda."

He chuckled at her double take. "What are you doing in Africa?"

"That's a really long story."

"You owe me the whole thing, mister. Every detail. And you can tell it to me when you're grounded, because you're not leaving this apartment again for a good two years at least. I'm not even mad, I'm so relieved. But you are so grounded."

He didn't even care. He could sit in that apartment and do nothing but talk to May for two years and he'd be perfectly content. "I am so glad you're okay."

"You're glad I'm okay? I'm not the one who's been missing for days."

"Didn't Miss Potts call you? Tony called her as soon as we got back in range and she was supposed to tell you I was okay."

"She might have tried. My phone's been a brick since … yesterday. No service at all. I'm not sure how you got through."

"I told you we needed a better provider, May."

"Well we don't all have irresponsible billionaires who give us toys and lead us into horrifically dangerous situations." May's tone had changed, but Peter was well acquainted with the icy disproval she harbored towards Mister Stark ever since she learned of his role in Peter's double life. "I saw him on the news getting sucked up in some spaceship. And _that_ ' _s_ where you've been all this time? _Space_?"

"Yes."

"And then instead of bringing you home he takes you to _Africa?"_

"That wasn't really his choice. He needed medical attention, fast, and Colonel Rhodes said to bring him here. He's okay now, by the way."

"It's a good thing someone patched him up. Means I get to throttle him myself."

He knew May's anger was understandable, but he wished the two most important adults in his life would be able to get along. "Don't be mad at Tony. He sent me home so that I would be safe. I came back and snuck on board the ship. He didn't know until it was too late to send me back again."

May sighed and pushed all the hair away from her face. "Why would you do that?"

"Because there was someone in trouble we needed to save." He couldn't bear to tell her it was also because he'd thought that _Iron Man_ needed backup. That would surely not go over well.

He could see some of the fight drain out of her, the way it had when he'd explained why he _needed_ to be Spiderman. "And did you save him?"

"Yeah. But it didn't matter anyway in the end because … " He'd been so euphoric when his plan had worked but it hadn't mattered anyway because Strange was gone and half of everyone was gone and …

"Oh Peter. Come home. Please just come home."

"Have you heard from Ned?" he asked, because now that May was safe that was the next person he needed to account for.

May froze, and he knew even before she whispered, "I'm so sorry honey."

He couldn't believe Ned was gone. Ned, the first person who'd spoken to him at Midtown. Ned, the first person besides Tony to find out he was Spiderman. Ned, his guy in the chair. Ned, who he'd left behind on that bus without looking back.

But no tears fell, because, "It's okay. Tony and the others, we're going to fix this."

"Peter, the news – what's left of it – they say that it's everywhere – all across the world – roughly half the people are just _gone."_

"All across the galaxy," he corrected, and the magnitude of that was just insane – billions upon billions, and he had no idea how many inhabited planets were out there, but it was probably a lot.

And one giant raisin did not get to bring them all to their knees. "The Avengers won't let him get away with it."

He didn't expect that to make May look more scared. "Don't you go running off on another crusade, Peter. You come home first, do you hear me? I need to see you. I need to know that you're all right."

"Mister Stark will be well enough to travel in the morning, and we shall send you little hero on his way." Shuri poked her head in front of the phone, jabbering brightly.

"May, this is Shuri. She's the one who patched up Tony and leant me a phone."

"Well, hello Shuri. Glad someone in Peter's life is responsible." She raised an eyebrow. "So it's Tony now, huh?"

Peter shrugged. "We fought aliens together. Formality seems a little unnecessary now."

Her chuckle sounded a bit like a sob. "Come home, Peter. I love you so much."

"Love you too, May. I'll bring you a souvenir!" He signed off quickly so she wouldn't see the emotions wash over him, leaving him numb but extremely exhausted.

"You really think that what has been done can be reversed?" Shuri asked.

"Yeah. Thanos had a stone that can turn back time. It's a long shot but the Avengers won't give up until we work something out."

Shuri stared at him for an unnervingly long time, and then she pulled a bracelet of black beads from her wrist and handed it to him.

"What's this?"

"A souvenir. For your aunt."

"What's it do?"

"It looks nice." Shuri laughed like it was supposed to be funny and then touched the bracelet on her other wrist. "Now this one – this is proprietary technology."

He put the bracelet on his wrist, too tired to pry.

"You can keep the phone, though. If you Avengers do try to reverse this, I wish to help in any way that I can. I expect you to keep in touch."

"I will."

"Good. Now it's time to follow the doctor's orders and get some rest. He will not wake for another eleven hours. You should get some sleep. And you are also is desperate need of a shower."

He laughed at the disgusted look she shot him, and then hopped off the table and went to stand in front of Tony. His breathing was still easy, his heartbeat steady. After a moment of hesitation Peter grabbed his hand. He didn't expect the wave of fondness that washed through him, fierce and unrelenting. "Sleep well, Tony. I'll be back before you wake up."

"It seems to me, when a man worries about someone else's welfare with what might be his last breath, he must care quite deeply about that person."

Shuri was watching him closely. Suddenly self-conscious he dropped Tony's hand. "What?"

"After my father died, there were moments when my brother strove to fill the void he had left in my life. He will always be my annoying older brother, but there were moments when he was also more."

Peter thought he knew was she was trying to say, but he was too tired to process it. "Why won't you let this go?"

"Because there are too few people left not to be honest with one another. My brother knew how much he meant to me. But I still wish that I had said it more."

But Peter wasn't sure what Tony meant to him, and he understood even less what, if anything, he meant to Tony. Right now all he knew was he was extremely grateful that the man had survived unscathed. "I'm so, so glad you're all right." Giving his hand one last squeeze, he turned away and followed Shuri out of the lab.

* * *

 **So sorry for the delay, guys. Real life, you know? But I am so grateful for all the reviews I've received so far, and if you enjoyed this I'd love to hear from you. One more part to go.**


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Tony noticed when he woke up was that he didn't hurt any longer.

The second was that Steve Rogers was sitting at his bedside.

The third was that Peter was gone.

Tony bolted up quickly. Surprisingly nothing inside him protested as he twisted to scan the room for his Spiderling, to no avail.

"Easy buddy. Welcome back," Steve said, and for a second all Tony could see was his ridiculous beard, but that didn't matter because the kid was gone.

"Where's Peter?" he demanded, ready to hop out of bed and track him down himself.

Unless he couldn't. Because what if he wasn't there to find? What if the whole trip back, when Peter had rambled on from his perch in his spider nest, constantly reminding Tony that he'd promised to hold on, had just been some fever dream, the only possible thing his grief-stricken mind could conjure to get him to keep on living?

God, he couldn't breathe.

Steve rested a hand on his forearm, warm and heavy. Grounding. "Asleep, hopefully. Shuri finally convinced him to get some rest. He wouldn't leave until you were out of surgery."

He had asked her to do that, he remembered now. The panic receded, but anxiety sat in his gut where the agony had been lodged.

It didn't help that Steve was looking at him with a smug look Tony couldn't quite read. They might have had textbooks worth of things to say to one another but all Tony really wanted to do was punch him in the face and slip away while he was distracted.

"Spit it out. Wanna tell me how irresponsible I am for bringing a teenager to fight an alien megalomaniac? You think I don't know that?"

But Steve, as usual, didn't take the bait. His calm had been maddening but essential, once. "I wasn't much older than Peter when I enlisted. He's young, but he'll be fine." He tilted his head, his tone regaining just a fraction of the levity it had once held. "What I was going to say was that he seems quite attached to you."

"Well, he's too young to know any better."

"You seem quite attached to him too. It's nice."

It made him uncomfortable that he'd been so transparent. "I get attached to people," he snapped. "Pepper. The team. Which you broke up, by the way."

"Tony, I'm sorry."

But that was too easy. He hadn't held on to that insult to technology for over a year, stewing over what Steve had broken, for a three word apology over what was apparently not going to be his death bed. "Are you? Are you really?"

Steve flinched, and Tony thought he'd lost the ability to wound the Capsicle. But there was something dull about the Captain's eyes, a hopeless desperation that Tony had often seen in the mirror but never on the other man's face. That might have given him a sick satisfaction once, but now he just felt sick.

It was a dark day if Captain America had already given up.

"Yes. And no. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about your parents, and I'm really sorry about what happened in Siberia. But I'm not sorry that I wouldn't sign the Accords. And I'm certainly not sorry that I wouldn't let you hunt down my best friend."

"Where is the good old Winter Soldier, by the way? Want to make sure I know when to watch my back."

It was like something inside Steve just crumbled, and Tony knew. And all the anger inside him was pushed away by cold horror at the memory of Peter begging for his life. "Bucky's gone. He … disappeared with the others."

"I'm sorry," Tony said automatically.

"No you're not."

"I actually kinda am," he said, shocking himself with how much he meant it. He still wanted to beat the man to a pulp for killing his parents, and now he would never have the chance. But no one deserved to watch the ones they cared around disintegrate. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Steve nodded, but he looked so much like a kicked puppy that Tony couldn't stand it. He was tired of letting Grimace win, just because he and Capsicle couldn't fight nice on the playground.

"Look. I'm about to be the bigger man here which – wow – personal growth. You and I, we need to call a truce and put this bullshit aside. Because the world needs the Avengers. We gotta put what's left of the team back together and figure out how to reverse what that purple asshole did." Peter might still be around, but his aunt could be gone and this was not the world he deserved to grow up in. He'd wear himself out trying to help everyone in his tiny corner of the neighborhood within _weeks_. The devastation of the world at large would destroy him. And Tony wasn't going to let that stand.

"Reverse it? We can try to help control the aftermath, but half the world is _gone_."

Tony rolled his eyes at the pessimism he'd felt yesterday. But it was a heck of a lot easier to think positive when he wasn't bleeding out slowly. Nor was it the first time he'd found purpose after facing his own mortality. "Yeah. For now. But one of those Infinity Stones can control time. When we were on Titan the wizard looked into all possible futures and saw one where we win, and then he traded my life for the very stone he swore he'd never give up or destroy. Which has to mean that there's something I can do to fix this. And I will fight to my dying breath to reverse what that bastard did, whatever the cost. But I can't do it alone. So we need to pool all our brains, and all our brawn, and all our dumb luck, and go back to being the heroes this world needs. You in?"

There were too many emotions shifting across the Captain's face, all too personal, that Tony looked away, focusing on the nearest piece of art, the bright colors a sharp contrast to the gloom that had settled over the half empty universe.

"I'm in." Steve held out his hand, and it was old school and kind of stupid but Tony shook it anyway.

"Who knows. Maybe we'll get your friend back and then we'll actually have to deal with our issues."

Peter chose that moment to skid into the room, all super-speed and gangly teenage gracelessness. His eyes widened when they lighted on Tony, and Tony's anxiety dissolved in an instant. "You're awake! Oh man, I wanted to be here. I set three alarms. But I must have been really tired because they didn't wake me up."

"No problem kid. We both needed some rest," he said, dropping Steve's hand. What he meant was, _it's damn good to see you, now I can stop worrying that you died._

He didn't know when he'd gotten so emotional, or so fond.

"Did the two of you make up?" Peter asked, glancing between them. He'd clearly seen the handshake, but of all the Avengers he was least likely to give them shit about it.

"For now," Tony drawled.

"Maybe for good?" Peter encouraged.

"We'll see." Tony had the strongest urge to wrap the kid in a bear hug and not let go, but Cap was watching and that was not the sort of thing Tony Stark did. So he patted the bed next to him, and contented himself with having Peter sit within arm's reach, close enough that he could reach out and ruffle his hair – but he didn't.

"How are you feeling? Shuri said you'd be well enough to travel today. Can we get out of here? Aunt May is waiting and Black Widow wants to get back to Hawkeye and I've never been away from home this long."

"Wait. Rewind. You spoke to your aunt?"

"Yeah. May's fine." That explained the spark in the kid's eyes, though not necessarily the energy that seemed to be vibrating through him. Tony was shockingly pleased that he was going to see a woman who surely intended to do him bodily harm, but Peter needed her and he needed Peter to be okay.

"That's good. Did someone give you coffee?"

"No. Maybe. It smelled like hot chocolate."

"No caffeine for the spider-ling. Got it," Tony said. He didn't remember much about innocence, but it was somehow appealing etched across the kid's face as he scowled back at him. This time he didn't fight his instincts, and reached out to mess up the kid's hair.

Peter ducked away, but not immediately, and with his reflexes Tony knew he saw it coming. The look on his face did something funny in Tony's chest. "I'm glad you and Mr. Rogers made up," he said earnestly.

Tony snorted, the image assaulting him with all the subtly of a freight train. "Oh, that is classic. Why did I never think of that before. Mr. Rogers. I am so using that."

"That's my name," Steve said, befuddled.

"That's what makes it priceless. Come on. Mr. Rogers. Old man. Roughly your same code of ethics. Cardigan sweaters, sneakers, a trolley to a land of make believe. Puppets. Really, nothing?" Steve and Peter gave him equally blank looks. "Come on kid. I know he was under the ice but surely you've seen that show." Peter shook his head, and Tony heaved a dramatic sigh. "You make me feel so _old_."

The little brat actually smirked. "That's because you are old."

"And now I'm deeply offended." He ignored Capsicle's snicker. "My own protegee, with no respect for his—"

"—elders," Peter teased.

"Mentor!" Tony glared, but there was no ire behind it. When he'd first met the kid he'd been far too starstruck for any type of sass. He'd relished the respect – until he'd realized it wasn't going to stop the kid from doing what he wanted anyway – but now he much preferred the easy banter, as if he was finally comfortable enough to let his guard down.

They kid laughed. "Whatever you say, Tony. Can we go home now?"

Tony reached out and grabbed his shoulder as if he needed the support to help him stand, though really he wanted to make sure he was solid under his fingertips. "Yeah, Underoos. Let's go home."

* * *

The ride back on the Quinjet was a somber affair, punctuated by the team, one after another, expressing how glad they were to see him alive, as if he'd been at death's door or something. He was strangely glad to see Robo Smurf sulking in the back of the jet. If they were assembling a team that wanted Thanos dead, she would surely qualify with the force of her hatred alone.

Tony also had a sneaking suspicion she'd be damn good with a weapon.

The talking raccoon certainly boasted about how good he was with them.

Peter stuck close, seemingly overwhelmed by his present company, but he was soon distracted by the view out the window, and spent most of the trip rambling about how _cool_ it all was, reminding Tony that his little trip to and from Germany had been the only time the kid had ever been on a plane.

It was hard for Tony to imagine being that sheltered.

 _Or that poor_ , an uncomfortable voice whispered.

There were half a dozen inappropriate ideas Tony would have offered once to pass the time – breaking into the in-flight beverage cart he'd insisted on installing, having a dance party in the aisle, diverting course to a tropical hideaway. But for once he wanted to be home as much as anybody, and he could sense this wasn't quite the moment for levity. Even the raccoon was depressed. So he contented himself with watching the kid, letting his need to give him some semblance of a normal life strengthen his resolve.

And when the Compound finally came into view and Natasha steered them down onto the familiar landing pad, Tony felt ready to get to work.

He could spell Pepper's perfume when he stepped into the building, and he'd barely gotten out, "Honey, I'm home," before she tackled him. Pepper was always overly concerned about appearances, almost never engaging in PDAs in case they'd call her professionalism as Stark Industries CEO into question, but she threw her arms around his shoulders and then kissed him like she'd thought she'd never see him again.

Which – damn it – was probably the case.

"Sorry I missed dinner," he said when they finally broke for air, reaching up to thumb away her tears so no one else would notice they'd fallen. Her mascara was the kind that didn't smudge, because she was always smart enough to think of the little things like that.

"You're impossible," she told him, burying her head in his neck, placing a kiss where his pulse jumped. "Are you really okay?"

"Am now." He heard a squeal, and pulled Pepper against his side as he pivoted to watch Peter swing his aunt around in an exuberant hug, whatever they were saying escalating into decibels only dogs could hear. When they finally pulled apart Peter pulled a bracelet of black beads off his wrist and handed it to May, and Tony decided it would be best to rip this band-aid off now and get it over with.

He stepped away from Pepper to remove her from harm's way. "Underoos here made friends with a princess."

"Shuri's Queen now," Peter corrected, his teenage defiance somehow adorable, and Tony didn't understand what was wrong with himself lately.

"We're gonna fix that. She's too young for such responsibility," he said pointedly. Peter glared, pouting, and Tony grinned back. "She is one hell of a doctor though. I've never felt better."

May stalked toward him, madness in her eye, and Tony missed the days when the greatest harm this woman could do him was feed him walnut date loaf. He was ready for the slap that he knew he deserved, but when she lunged toward him afterwards for a split second he contemplated defending himself before she latched her arms around his torso and pressed herself against his chest.

It took a few befuddled seconds for him to realize that she was _hugging_ him.

"Um, I'm getting kind of mixed signals here."

When she stepped back, her arms wrapped around her waist, her fury seemed to have faded. "The slap was for taking my kid into space. The hug was for bringing him home."

For a second he was envious that she could claim Peter as her own so easily, even though there was no blood shared between them. Perhaps that's why honesty slipped out, shocking no one more than himself. "I didn't bring him home," he admitted. "He brought me home."

"Technically Nebula brought us both home," Peter said, scratching at the back of his neck as if he were nervous.

"Don't get all humble on me now, Underoos." He turned back to May. "Pete saved my life. He more than earned his place on the team."

"What team?" she asked, raising one perfectly manicured eyebrow of doom.

"I'm kinda an Avenger now." There was pride in Peter's voice, and a little hesitance – understandable given his Aunt's protective fueled temper – but also an uncertainty that Tony couldn't let stand.

"Not kinda. Impromptu initiations in space totally count. One hundred percent official. Just less paperwork." Steve's gaze jerked toward him with that, and he knew it made him a damn hypocrite, but he wasn't letting Senator Ross anywhere near Peter, Accords be damned.

"You're an Avenger now," May repeated. Tony watched the repercussions of that sink in, as Peter introduced the whole team by full names, and May's eyes grew wider and wider as he ended on a blue alien cyborg and a talking raccoon.

Peter noticed when she started to sway, webbing a chair and pulling it across the room with a flick of his wrist and gently pressing his aunt down in it before she could fall.

"Sorry. That was kind of weird," Peter said softly, like he was talking to a spooked animal, but also like he was talking to the thing he loved most in the world.

His aunt's resulting laugh was a bit hysterical. "This is all kind of weird, buddy." She looked around the room at the superheroes her nephew had befriended, who were all awkwardly waiting for instruction since none of them had rooms here anymore. "You can tell me about it on the drive home."

"No!" The thought of Peter leaving flooded Tony with so much panic that he spoke without thinking, stepping towards the boy and reaching, instinctively, toward where his arc reactor would be if it hadn't been ruined by an angry grape. Peter couldn't leave, because was Tony really supposed to fly to Queens every time he needed reassurance that the kid was still solid?

He would fly to Queens if he had to.

He didn't want to fly to Queens.

Peter's eyes widened at his vehemence and his stance shifted as he braced for a threat, and Tony forced himself to calm down so he'd stop scaring the kid. "You should stay here. Both of you. It's safer. Peter already has a room and we can set you up right next to him. Besides, we need to keep the team together."

Peter relaxed, but something about him still looked so impossibly young. Tony knew he should have been sending him home, far far away from their defeated little war council, but he was too selfish to do it.

He cared too damn much to do it.

What a paradox.

"I'm not benched?" Peter asked, tentative. Not tentative enough, all things considered.

 _Yes you're benched. You're benched till you're 40. I am never letting you put yourself in danger again._

"I thought you wanted to be benched," Tony said, trying for nonchalance, but he could hear how his voice waivered.

"No." Peter scowled. "Maybe. I dunno." Tony could practically hear his rambling internal monologue, the need to look out not just for his neighborhood but the entire world warring with the part of him that was reliving feeling himself fall apart on an alien planet.

Inside himself, the same selfish and noble intentions brawled.

"Right now we don't know where the damn stadium is, let alone the bench. Let's figure out what the plan is and then we'll see if there's some tiny, non-dangerous role that you can play. Capiche?"

Tony expected an argument, because Peter had never once been willing to sit back because of danger, and Tony had the grey hairs to prove it. As glad as Tony was to hear him agree, his parroted, "Capiche," worried him immensely. His little spider-ling was more shaken than he was letting on.

"Good," he said anyway. "That's the easiest that conversation has ever gone. Are you really Peter Parker? That insect lady didn't lay eggs in you, did she?"

"Tony!" the kid whined, and the worry loosened its grip. Peter cocked his head and scrunched up his eyes. "Wait a sec. You said I have a room here."

"Of course you have a room here. What kind of terrible host would I be if I invited you to move to the Compound and didn't have a room prepared? I even picked out some of the décor myself." At Pepper's scoff he backtracked a bit. "Okay, so Pepper did most of it. But I offered a few suggestions."

For once Tony was the one rambling as Peter just stared. Once Tony finally shut up Peter said, "You said that asking me to join the Avengers last year was just a test. Why would you set up a room for me?"

 _Busted_. "Technically you guessed that it was a test, and I didn't not agree."

"It wasn't a test?" Tony wished they were having this conversation in private, but the look on Peter's face almost made up for it – shock and awe and pride leaving him adorably befuddled. He thought teenagers were supposed to be surly and obnoxious – and Peter had his moments – but perhaps this spider of his had a bit of golden retriever spliced in.

"I miscalculated the situation, and that was my bad. I expected you to react exactly as I would have at your age – or let's be honest, at my age too. I didn't realize yet how good you are at doing the right thing and surprising me."

"Were there really reporters there? Wait a sec – wasn't that around the time you announced your engagement?" Tony saw the moment realization sparked, but there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. "You didn't _propose to Miss Potts_ because I wouldn't join the Avengers?"

"No," he lied, instinctively indignant.

"Yes!" Pepper corrected, and Tony flinched. "Anthony Edward Stark. I will never let you live down the fact that you staged our engagement because Spiderman stood you up at a press conference."

He tried to tuned out the heckles of their nosy crowd. At least they weren't _bloggers_. "In my defense, you worked really hard to get all those reporters there. I didn't want that to go to waste. Plus you knew exactly what I was doing and still said yes, so really that's on you."

He wouldn't have pushed that particular button if he didn't know, deep down, that Pepper didn't mind. It had taken some convincing, after all the reporters had gone, that he 6had really meant everything he'd said, and they didn't have to live some sham engagement until they staged an acceptable reason to call it off.

It had taken some time for him to convince himself that he was ready for such a step, but he already knew he couldn't function without Pepper, and that made signing a paper and putting a ring on it a little less scary.

He'd actually been looking forward to it by the time Grimace blew all their plans to hell.

"Miss Potts, I am so sorry."

"Ouch!" Tony protested, because the kid was looking at his fiancé like he'd locked her in a dungeon, not promised her a life of love and luxury.

Pepper smiled, the storm passed. "It's okay, Peter. You did me a favor. If not for you it might have taken him another ten years to propose."

Peter turned to him, his eyes still so damned wide, as if of everything in the past 78 hours _this_ was the most shocking. "You waited ten years to propose to Miss Potts? What's wrong with you?"

Pepper belly laughed, the musical sound triggering something inside him that made it impossible to actually feel annoyed. He'd never understood how she could do that. Mystic powers, probably. "Hey. I'm suddenly feeling very attacked here." He crossed his arms and pouted. "Happy exaggerates. I did not give him that ring in 2008. And you would not have married me if I asked you when I bought it. Really I was just planning ahead. Aren't you always telling me that's important?"

"Mmmhmm," Pepper hummed in that tone that clearly indicated that he was awfully idiotic for a genius. "And yet you still can't manage to sit through a forecast meeting."

"That's because they're so boring."

"Can we stay?" Peter asked, turning back to his aunt, who was watching Tony with an expression he didn't care to analyze. He reached for her and she grasped his hand tightly, pulling it up to her mouth to press a kiss against the back of his wrist. "Please?"

 _Please_ , Tony wanted to echo, but there was nothing that he could say that was more convincing than the kid's puppy dog eyes.

May's gaze flitted around the room and settled on Tony. There was something searching there, as if she was trying to peer into his soul and pick him apart, and he didn't like it. Because surely she'd find him lacking. Surely she'd see the million reasons why it was better to take Peter far from here, away from Tony's hubris and arrogance and tendency to break everything he touched. She wasn't wrong to distrust him, because he'd pulled her kid into a dangerous world without a second thought, and it had taken him months to realize the harm he might have done – but he still didn't regret it. He'd never be able to regret the excitement on Peter's face the first time they stood side by side in their suits, or when his plan had worked on Thanos's ship.

He couldn't regret bringing Spiderman to confront Captain America, because if he'd never done that, he'd have never met Peter.

And he couldn't wish that away, as much as maybe he should. Because at his core, Tony Stark had always been a selfish man.

"For now," she conceded. As soon as she looked away Tony drew in a deep breath. "We'll revaluate in a few days."

"Thank you!" Peter pulled his aunt into another epic hug, and once again her feet left the ground.

"Okay, kiddo. We're back to weird."

"You should wait till you see him make a nest on the ceiling," Tony quipped, trying to regain some semblance of control.

Peter's consternated look was priceless.

"What, not helping?"

"Not at all."

"Perhaps we could focus?" Natasha's voice was sharp, and Tony looked up to find she was holding one of Barton's agents masquerading as progeny. The man beside her looked barely standing, his eyes glassy and empty.

 _That could have been me_ , Tony thought with a terrible sobering urgency.

"All right. Circle up. Team meeting. Avengers 2.0. 3.0? 1.0 with a kid and a couple of aliens?"

It wasn't a circle by any means. But some of the team inched towards him, and when Steve stepped forward others followed like magnets.

The were a rag-tag bunch, defeated, all in need of a change of clothes and a long shower. The lack of hope would be their biggest obstacle – they couldn't win if they had already given up.

But Peter was standing very close to him, rapt with attention, practically bouncing on those extra springy spider legs of his, all energy and adoration. Tony felt a gentle hand on his back, breathed in the sense of peace Pepper's perfume always evoked, the knowledge that she was about to force his chaotic life into place.

Unlike so many times in his life, he was not alone. He had _family_. It may not have been one he had been born with, but he had forged it, like his suit, in the fires of his deepest fear and despair. And it would give him the strength to carry on.

He reached out and tugged Peter toward him, draping his arm across the spider-kid's shoulders in a feigned casual motion that was anything but. He was staking a claim he had absolutely no right to. But Tony was accustomed to getting what he wanted, so he did it anyway. He watched the surprise ripple through the team, May understandably the most scrupulous and skeptical of all. Pepper's hand pressed a bit harder against his back, but he imagined she was smiling. What mattered was that Peter looked at him quizzically but did not shake him off. Tony noticed how he seemed to stand just a little straighter, as if he was under the absurd notion that Iron Man's approval made him better, when clearly it was the other way around.

Tony cleared his throat. "We'll get you all rooms. Bunker down, lick our wounds. Mandatory dinner in the lounge at 7 – no excuses. We'll swap intel and remember what we're fighting for. And then tomorrow we start working out how to take that purple asshole down and bring back everything he took. Got it?"

Half the group was still looking at him like he'd grown a second head, just because he had his arm around a kid. The other half looked like the didn't give a damn.

Steve was the first to answer, "Got it," and Tony tried to smile at him. One by one the others followed in a chorus on muted agreement.

It didn't sound like victory yet. But he'd made kind of a habit of creating miracles out of broken pieces.

"Want to do the honors, kid?" he asked the teenager still tucked into his side.

His grin was almost brilliant enough to white out all the horror of the past few days. "Avengers assemble," Peter crowed.

* * *

 **This chapter was supposed to be twice as long, but I wanted to post something on Father's Day. Please let me know what you think – your comments make my day. One more part coming!**


	4. Chapter 4

Tony's arc reactor had been severely damaged in the fight with Thanos, rendering his suit effectively destroyed. Contrary to form, Tony did not slip off to the lab to build another once his guests were settled, even though the world needed Iron Man more than ever. Instead he sprawled out in his favorite chair, Pepper in his lap, and listened as she chronicled the fall of the world.

She remained extraordinarily composed, but she'd always hid her feelings behind professionalism. As her hands began to shake he grasped them, one by one, and tried to give her back some of the strength she had lent him all these years.

She spoke of fatal plane crashes and horrific highway pileups. Countries without leaders. Overcrowded hospitals with a fraction of their staff. Cell networks down, news stations barely functioning. The looting and anarchy that had already begun.

Five minutes into the story he had FRIDAY put child's locks on all remaining news sources and social media in what he knew was a vain attempt at keeping Peter in the dark about just how bad it was. The kid had the biggest bleeding heart he'd ever seen, and this devastated world would eat him alive.

It would also be the Avengers' biggest obstacle. Thankfully Senator Ross was gone, but there would be others of his ilk who would demand that the Avengers – at least those who were registered – try to keep the world from careening any further into chaos. It was a noble goal – one that Capsicle and Peter and probably everyone else in the Compound except for the cyborg and the rodent would immediately get on board with – but it would become an all-consuming distraction. Tony could think of half a dozen shitty analogies and zero scenarios where they rebuilt the world into anything worth living in. All the lives they might save, all the suffering they could alleviate – none of it would matter in the end, because the only acceptable outcome was getting hold of those stones and undoing Scrot-face's snap. Tony would have to keep the team focused, somehow, on that impossible task.

They'd never been any good at turning a blind eye on human misery.

Tony could already feel the migraine building behind his temples.

But Pepper smoothed her hand through his hair, and spoke of how Stark Industries was helping to get cell networks back online, and had created an open source database where those who remained could check in with loved ones. Tony expected there was a certain African child-queen who might have an idea or two for the good of humanity. Perhaps there were enough brilliant women left to put the pieces back together as the men got ready to kick some ass.

It took almost as long to order two dozen pizzas as it did to listen to the fall of the world, but Pepper finally found someplace that would still deliver, and Tony left them an extraordinary tip.

His guests started drifting in at quarter to seven, Cap early like the goodie two shoes that he was. Pepper put him to work so Tony wouldn't have to make awkward small talk. By the time most of the guests arrived there was an impressive array of pizza, snacks, and alcohol spread across the bar.

They had done this a lot, once, to celebrate victories and take the edge off defeats. Tony had dozens of hazy memories of testosterone fueling pissing contests and drinking games, and the trading of war stories that escalated into the absurd. They'd barely been a team before shawarma, but something had changed after that first collective win. They had bonded so strongly that the breaking of that bond had sent shockwaves through the entire world.

It had decimated Tony's.

He'd always been too rich for the luxury of friends. There had just been Rhodey, rising above the sycophants and hangers-on with his dogged determination not to give a damn how loaded or impressive Tony was. Pepper and Happy had been employees long before they'd proved to be something more.

In the Avengers Tower Tony had unlearned some of his most destructive tendencies. He'd drank less and listened more. Learned to share a lab with someone who was nearly as brilliant, discovered the joy of having someone across the room to appreciate his discoveries. Been part of something, collectively, that was going to save the world instead of striving so desperately to achieve that on his own.

The lounge in the Compound looked nothing like the one in the Tower. It had been identical, once. Only Vision had been left to watch him blast through the fancy glass and familiar furniture, finding no satisfaction in its destruction. Vision had waited until Tony's tantrum had ended to ask what purpose it had served, in JARVIS's painfully familiar voice but without JARVIS's comforting restraint.

The new lounge was sterile and cold and had always been almost empty.

It was too crowded now. Most of the people here had turned into strangers and Tony regretted forcing them to gather. He had not expected their collective presence to make him so uncomfortable, but he should have.

But together they were the only hope for the lost half of the universe. So Tony forced a bored smile on his face, pretended he was just soldiering through another charity event or insufferable board meeting, and poured himself a glass of scotch.

Pepper circulated among their guests like the proper host she was, making sure everyone ate – even Nebula, who decried pizza as "savage Terran garbage" even though Tony doubted her psychotic father had employed a gourmet chef between bouts of dismantling her for fun.

Lang had showed up shortly after the Quinjet, daughter in tow, but missing his partner. The girl kept asking about her mother and Lang seemed unequipped to answer, something vacant in his eyes as he clutched his daughter's hand, his notorious gab silent.

It was Pepper who introduced the children, gently easing them away from their grief-stricken fathers to play together in the corner. She was good with them, something instinctively maternal making her softer, and Tony ached for a future that seemed increasingly unlikely now. A future that until just a few days ago he had never wanted.

It was the raccoon who started the storytelling after downing two full to the rim glasses of vodka. Once there was more alcohol than blood in its small body it held its refilled glass out in front of itself with a sloshing gesture. "Let me tell you about the biggest group of morons you could ever have met."

Tony could see them so very clearly from the very first description, their features flaking away into the thin air of that barren hellscape, and his stomach rolled. The scotch didn't help, and the thought of pizza made it worse, all his vices failing him. He wanted to retreat to the lab. At the very least get up and pace. Something. But he had gathered everyone here. He couldn't be the one to fall apart.

Tony was exceedingly glad when the raccoon dissolved into hiccups and Thor took over to tell of the fall of Asgard and his detour to some crummy pleasure planet, even if it meant he had to ignore the way Bruce was sitting a bit too close to Nat, one of her hands resting on his upper leg while the other was clasped around Barton's. Thor insisted they drink to his lost people, and Tony watched as they passed around his extraordinarily expensive bottle of scotch, swigging from it like they were in college.

When the bottle came to Tony he got up and handed it to Nebula, who perched in the chair most removed from the circle, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. All his smart ass comments died in his throat at the sight of a few rouge tears glistening on her cheek.

One of the racoon's morons had been her sister.

Such human grief on such an alien exterior was particularly disconcerting.

Maybe that was another reason the raccoon was so annoying.

The alcohol did its job loosening tongues, until the stories flowed freely, but Tony stayed uncharacteristically silent.

So did Peter. Tony didn't know the kid had an off switch, so when he left May's side to fetch his eighth slice of pizza Tony sidled up to him, marginally concerned. "I'll look the other way if you want to put some rum in that Coke."

Peter looked up so sharply he almost spilled the soda he just poured. "No! Mister Stark – Tony – I wouldn't! I'm only sixteen."

He looked so absolutely scandalized at the prospect that Tony laughed. Even Thor's shenanigans had not been able to pull that out of him. "I had my first bender when I was fifteen." The kid's mouth dropped open, and Tony realized his mistake a few seconds too late – Pete was not Rhodey. "Forget I said that, please. This is why I am not qualified to be anybody's role model."

"I couldn't do that to Aunt May," Pete said after a few awkward moments. His fingers made paths through the condensation on the glass Tony'd had etched with the Avengers logo. "Not after how much I made her worry. She doesn't need to see me drunk and stupid."

Tony couldn't help but be a little impressed. He hadn't managed that much emotional intelligence until he was well into his forties. "That is a very mature and responsible answer."

Peter stood just a little bit straighter. "That's because I am mature and responsible."

"I'm starting to think you might be right – at least sometimes." Peter grinned at the praise, qualified as it might be, and Tony found himself smiling back, despite how jittery and unsettled he'd been all evening. He couldn't begin to explain why having an inane conversation with a teenager made him feel a bit better, when the world was in crisis and an impossible task lay before him. But somehow it did, and Tony found himself wishing he'd had the guts to push Cap out of the way and sit by Peter all night long. "What it's like, maturity? As the world is well aware, I've never quite managed that." He chuckled self-deprecatingly, and swirled his scotch, and wondered why he'd just said such thing to one of the few people in the world who hadn't already reached that conclusion.

Peter frowned at him, and Tony realized that maybe he'd done it because disappointment was familiar, while adoration for anything besides his money was uncharted territory.

"That isn't true." Tony wasn't expecting the quiet intensity in Peter's voice, or the words that he spoke. "It's a mask, isn't it? If you pretend to be drunk and irresponsible no one will see you for who you really are, even if you're standing right in front of them."

Tony blinked. For a second he wondered if he was drunk because all coherent responses evaded him. Pepper was the only one who said things like that to him. She was the only one who ever bothered looking hard enough to _see_.

He'd refused to acknowledge what that meant for a very long time.

"Hate to break it to you, but I was rarely pretending." Deflection was easy. Deflection was comfortable. He'd been Tony Stark, philanthropist, billionaire, playboy for a very long time, since he was just slightly older than Peter.

"That was before Iron Man."

The kid's faith in him was almost painful, because Tony was fully aware how much it was undeserved. "Mostly, but sometimes during."

"You're not drunk now," Peter challenged.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah. That's your first glass, and you've only had a few swallows." Tony didn't know what to make of that. Because nobody noticed. Everyone always saw Tony Stark with a drink in his hand and assumed he was three sheets to the wind, even if he wasn't. It would have been easy to pretend, but he rarely bothered. Except recently, with Pepper as the angel on his shoulder. And this remarkable kid, looking at him like he hung the moon.

Tony didn't want this kid to think of him like everyone else did, even if that man was rich and suave and cool.

Even if the real Tony Stark was nothing to write home about, just a terrified, sad little orphan who wished he'd fixed things with his parents before they died. Who understood machines better than people, and only cared about the atrocities his money had wreaked when he'd almost become their most high-profile victim.

"You've been watching me."

Peter crossed his arms, his pizza long forgotten. "You've been watching _me_."

Tony had been, all night long, but he'd thought he'd been subtle. Just quick glances, to make sure Peter was eating – Peter was always eating. And to remind himself, when the raccoon's story was too much, that the kid was still solid. And as a way to calm down, when the panic clawed up his throat and there was no way to escape without being noticed.

"Does that bother you?" Tony asked.

"No," Peter answered without hesitation. "But it's weird."

His _Why?_ went unspoken, but Tony could read his confused curiosity like a string of FRIDAY's operating code. All the things Tony had wanted to say as Peter was disintegrating in his arms stuck in his throat once again. There were too many people around, and he was a coward.

"You're weird." Peter rolled his eyes, and Tony kept going. "I mean, like really weird. That sticking to the walls thing. You still haven't told me how that works. You're a scientific curiosity, and I've always been very scientifically curious."

"They make you nervous, don't they. The other Avengers?" Tony did a double take, because he'd expected the kid to rise to the bait, not ignore him completely and prod an even more sensitive nerve.

"How do you know that?"

The kid shrugged, and then smirked. "I can sense a trainwreck before it happens."

He looked so damn proud of himself that Tony barked out a laugh, and Peter smiled back, and the heaviness of the moment passed.

"You've been chewing on that one for a while, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

Tony blew out a long breath and scanned the room to look at his team, hoping they weren't as perceptive at this one kid. "We all made mistakes. We've got a lot of baggage to work through. I'll get over it. We're stronger together, and the world needs us."

"That sounds pretty mature and responsible to me."

"Watch it, Underoos. No good will come out of making me something I'm not."

"But what about making you realize something that you already are?"

The force of his words hit Tony like Peter's metaphorical train, and the emotions that welled up inside him in response were fierce and pure and so all-encompassing that they were absolutely terrifying. Tony didn't know what to do with them. Didn't know how to bleed some of them out so he could keep up his façade – tough and aloof and not altogether out of his depth. So he chose honesty, because in that moment sarcasm was beyond him.

"You're a good kid. It should be annoying. It's not."

Peter blinked as if bewildered, but his smile blossomed like a flower, tentative in the early spring. "Remember that the next time I don't listen to you, 'kay?"

Tony chuckled, and the moment passed, but the feelings remained lodged in his chest, warm and vast and strong as iron.

Peter took a bite of his long cooled pizza. Made a face, picked off a piece of pepperoni. Ate that instead.

Tony took a drink from his glass to give himself something to do. Immediately regretting it, he set it down and slid it across the bar.

The two stood side by side in silence for a while, watching the scotch get passed around again as Rhodey told his favorite story about dropping a tank in front of the general's palace. Not even May was impressed. Thor mentioned that he'd heard it before, and that made Tony laugh.

"This feels weird," Peter said, spinning his plate on the bar so fast Tony expected it would leave a mark, but he didn't even seem to notice. "Having a party with the Avengers when half the world is gone."

Someday he'd have to make sure the kid understood the meaning of the word party. "This is a wake. The grand old tradition of getting drunk and remembering the dead. We need to unwind. Reconnect. There are gonna be more rough days ahead. We'll need a couple good memories to hold on to."

"I feel guilty." The plate spun, faster and faster, and Tony yearned to reach out and stop it but he didn't. "Everyone lost so much. Rocket lost all his friends and Mr. Barton lost his wife and kids and I still have May –" The kid paused, looked down and mumbled, "and you" so quickly Tony almost didn't catch it.

Tony reached out and grasped the kid's shoulder. The plate halted with a clatter. Peter looked up at him with wide dewy eyes and Tony knew in an instant that if the kid wasn't standing before him there was no way Tony would be there. He wouldn't even be blackout drunk in the corner. He'd be dead on Titan, his will to live lost to the alien breeze. And he didn't feel even the tiniest bit guilty about that.

He knew that the others would look at them standing together and think that Tony saw himself in Peter, another bright orphan who wanted to be a hero. But they were wrong. Their similarities didn't go any further than the surface. This idealistic New Yorker with a huge heart and an unwavering moral compass was far more like Steve Rogers than Tony Stark. And that meant he had the potential to hurt Tony more deeply than any mini-me ever could. Because you expected someone like Tony Stark to let you down. To abandon you on a selfish whim. To make the wrong choice. But a betrayal from someone like Steve Rogers was a savage beating in Siberia, brutal and unexpected.

"You never have to feel guilty that your life isn't more tragic. It just means that you're able to fight even harder for those who can't."

Peter pondered that awhile, and finally nodded. "I can do that."

Somehow Tony wasn't worried. Because he couldn't imagine a world where Peter turned on him. And if they ever came to a crossroads, he wouldn't make the same mistakes again. He would find for this bond between them, no matter how unconventional it may be, because he didn't want to go back to a life where this kid wasn't looking up to him, convincing him there was still good in the world worth fighting for. He'd had a few minutes on Titan to experience how awful that was, and there was no way he was going through that just because of his own stupidity.

It wasn't going to be easy for Peter – all the misery he'd have to face, all the lives he couldn't save. Tony's heart was far harder, and the scope of Thanos's devastation was still crushing. But Tony wouldn't let the kid face it alone. He'd just have to keep him impressed and distracted, and work like hell to make it all right again.

"I know you can. And we're going to figure out a way for you to do it that doesn't give me or your aunt a heart attack. Speaking of which, tomorrow's going to be one big strategy sesh, but I've got to get in the lab to fix my suit. I could use a second pair of hands."

Peter's smile was so bright that Tony forgot everything else for a moment. "Are you serious right now?"

"Absolutely."

"You're gonna let me help fix your Iron Man suit? Wow! I mean – I'm totally cool with it. Who am I kidding? That is one of the most awesome things anyone has ever said to me."

The kid's rambling enthusiasm warmed Tony more than alcohol ever had. His thoughts were still a jumbled mess, he was bone weary, and they had an impossible task before them. But this wasn't the worst off he'd been – not by a long shot. "You better rest up. I'm gonna need that genius brain of yours in tip top shape. Just wait til your head hits the pillow. The thread count is gonna blow your mind."

* * *

May and Peter left within the next hour, and Tony and Pepper followed shortly afterwards. Tony let her lead him through the Compound, their fingers locked together so tightly her engagement ring dug into his skin.

Pepper stepped out of her heels as soon as they reached the sanctuary of their rooms, and Tony sunk down onto their bed, falling back against the pillows.

"You'll still marry me, won't you Pep?" The concept had frightened him for so long, even after he'd asked. But he realized now, once she had every reason to leave him, that he couldn't stomach the thought.

She smiled at him, the expression not reaching her weary eyes, as she perched on the edge of the bed, just out of reach. "Of course. We've already paid the caterer. It would be inconvenient to cancel now."

"I didn't mean to worry you." This was what he always did, again and again, leave this brilliant woman behind to wonder if he'd gotten himself killed. Even she had limits, and he had promised her to be better.

Pepper leaned over him, one hand skimming gently across his face. "You'll just have to make it up to me," she said before she kissed him.

She tasted like scotch, which was new. Pepper drank martinis at work functions and Manhattans when she was off the clock. That was the kind of thing Tony had never noticed once. That he'd taught himself to pay attention to, at least for her.

He was no longer proud of all the women that he'd been with before. They'd been fleeting snatches of pleasure to break up the numbness of his life, until they'd become their own kind of anesthetic. Pepper was the only women he'd ever been with who had meant anything. She'd never cared about his wealth or his status – but loved him despite it. He'd already given her his company before she'd ever slept with him. She was the only woman he'd ever met without an ulterior motive – and even though she made him want to be better she never expected that of him.

But afterwards, when the bliss faded and the rest of the world came rushing back, that was all he could think of.

Neither he nor Pepper were particularly cuddly but tonight as she rolled away he pulled her back towards him, needing the closeness. She seemed to understand, skimming her hands down his arms before reaching out to trace an invisible line across his side. "Are you sure you got stabbed? There's not even a scar."

He could read her double meaning, because that absence was far from the least shocking. When he'd dressed this morning in Wakanda he'd discovered that his entire chest was unblemished.

The removal of the arc reactor had left a gaping hole above his sternum, where flesh and bone had long ago been gauged out and replaced with metal. The initial reconstruction had left him with an inflamed circle of scar tissue which Doctor Cho had insisted needed to heal before she could do another skin graft. But Tony had cancelled his follow up appointments so often that she eventually stopped scheduling them. As ugly as it was, Tony needed that ring above his heart to remind him of who he had become. He'd needed Iron Man like a drug, and despite all his promises to Pepper he'd suited up again and again, unable to face who he might be without his alter ego.

But as Pepper traced the now invisible circle, Tony realized for the first time that he wanted to find out. That perhaps, even without a suit that could save the world, he might be able to be a good man.

So Tony pulled Pepper closer, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. He had been so certain, as Grimace's ship left the atmosphere, that it was a one way ticket. Until Peter had revealed himself Tony had not expected to get home. But the kid had a curfew, so beating Thanos had become step one in a two-step plan.

He had always feared death, but he'd never had so much to lose.

"I have to fix this, Pep. I can't let that purple bastard take away half the universe. We have to find a way to bring them back. But after that I'm done. No more nano-reactors, just in case. It's time for Iron Man to retire for good."

Pepper's fingers stilled. "You've said that before."

It stung that she didn't believe him, even though she had no reason to. "But I've never meant it. Not like this. Being Iron Man used to be the strongest high I could ever imagine. But on that planet – everyone just fucking dissolved around us. This isn't fun anymore. And maybe I've made more messes than I've cleaned up. I don't know. But the score doesn't seem to matter anymore. I'm tired of trying to hold the whole world together. I'm too old for this."

"Oh Tony." Pepper combed her fingers through his hair, her touch soft and comforting, and Tony closed his eyes and breathed her in.

"We could go to Venice," he said, picturing it, the fantasy he'd tried to hold on to when the palladium was killing him. Even when she'd barely touch him she'd been a balm to his chaotic soul. He'd been too blind to call it love, then, but he had known how desperately he needed her. "Pretend to be normal people."

Pepper's response was wry, but that was okay. His world made the most sense when she was challenging him. "Emphasis on pretend. You'd be bored in one day. Besides, you'd miss Peter too much."

He should not have been surprised that she noticed. Apparently he'd become too anxious for subtlety. "We can fly him over on weekends. Or I could buy May a villa down the street. Yeah, that's what I'll do."

"And what happens the next time the world's in danger? Or Peter's in trouble? Will Iron Man stay retired then?"

He opened his eyes, the fantasy crumbling away like dust. "There's some things I can't just let happen. Not if I can stop them."

"I know," she said softly. Then she kissed him, gentle and sweet. "I wouldn't love you so much if you could."

"I don't mean to make you worry."

"I'm not leaving you," she assured. "Get some sleep."

Tony tried. For awhile he was content just to watch Pepper sleep, counting each rise and fall of her chest. She was truly an extraordinary woman, and he'd lost her too many times not to appreciate what a marvel it was that she was still here, beside him in bed, after everything.

After everything, it was only a matter of probability that kept her there.

That thought settled in his gut like too much booze, churning his stomach as a cold sweat swept over him. He tried to replace it with memories of Pepper kissing him, Pepper loving him, but he kept seeing all the times he'd let her down and it always ended somehow on Titan, where she wasn't the only one to fade before his eyes. He stumbled out of bed, extricating himself from her grasp as quickly but carefully as he could, fighting nausea all the way.

The cold shower didn't help, but it did clear his thoughts. He toweled himself off, threw on a pair of pajamas and a robe, and slipped out of his room.

He and Pepper had a whole floor to themselves – their very own Avengers penthouse – a perk of being the ones who'd designed the Compound. All the other Avengers had quarters on the floor below. Tony had made sure that Peter's room was closest to the elevator, just in case someone needed to check on the kid.

He'd told himself it was mere convenience. With so many empty rooms, why walk any further than you needed to.

He was glad now that he did not have to pass any of his sleeping teammates, making discovery a little less likely.

Tony paused outside Peter's door, trying to get his vitals in check so the kid wouldn't wake to his racing heartbeat. He traced the letters on the nameplate, remembering how the kid had beamed when he'd seen it. He was easy to please, a ten dollar piece of plastic lighting up his face almost as much as a multi-million dollar suit. Tony recognized the yearning to _belong_.

He'd been much older before it had been satisfied in himself.

He'd felt that yearning again for years now, and the ache was worse than it had ever been when he was a lonely child or a misbehaving adolescent, because he knew what it was like to be part of team, to always have someone who you cared about and who cared for you in turn just within reach. He also knew what it was like for them to turn on you, to walk away, to leave you beaten and stranded because they chose someone else.

He didn't know if he wanted to forgive Steve, not really. He didn't know if he could. But he wished they had never broken. Wished that Peter could have experienced the Avengers as they once were, unstoppable and glorious.

But if they had remained that way, Peter may never had met them at all.

Never met Tony.

It was just a little bit harder to be mad at Cap when his betrayal had somehow, impossibly, led to this.

Tony pushed the door open, glad to find it wasn't locked.

He was not expecting to find the light on, with Peter lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He turned his head just enough to look at Tony. His eyes were questioning, but he didn't say anything, and Tony felt more vulnerable than all the times he'd been caught in some indiscretion.

"I didn't come in here to do anything creepy like stare at you while you sleep," he blurted.

"Then why are you here?"

"You weren't supposed to call me out on that," he said, blowing out a labored breath as he grabbed the chair from in front of Peter's desk, twirled it closer to the kid's bedside and straddled it, resting his chin on his crossed arms and peering at the sleepy teen from over the top of the chair.

God, Tony remembered being sixteen, brilliant and lonely and not quite grown into his own skin, ostracized and idolized for his family's wealth, largely ignored by his parents except for their occasional displeasure, uncertain whether he wanted to prove himself or prove that nothing his parents thought mattered. Plagued by hormones and curiosity and discontent. What he'd desperately wanted was for someone to take to interest in him, to honestly care how his life turned out for his sake and not their own. To help him channel his genius into something constructive. To forgive him when he made mistakes.

And because he'd never had that growing up – not until an overqualified PA bustled into his life much, much later and for some reason decided not to leave – he'd never thought he was qualified to do that for someone else.

Had never wanted to.

But now …

There was just something about the kid that Tony couldn't explain or deny. He'd been impressed by the YouTube videos – by what the kid could do and what he'd chosen to do with those skills. He'd been even more impressed when they met in person, by how he created something out of nothing, that he could save lives with a onesie, some goggles and some webbing that he'd developed himself. That had been a surprise, his latent brilliance. As had his motivation, some pure, innocent drive to help the little people. Iron Man had discovered he was playing hero, and instead of boasting he'd tried to hold on to his obscurity. Had tried to turned down a mission because he had _homework_. Tony hadn't realized quite yet how hard that must have been, because Germany had revealed how much Peter adored Iron Man, how he did want to be a super hero after all.

It had scared Tony, how fond he grew of the kid in just a couple days, his wide eyed innocence and boundless enthusiasm, stuttering soliloquies and eagerness to impress. So he'd responded by keeping his distance, becoming the one person he'd never wanted to be. And Peter had put himself in danger, again and again, and then he'd almost died, alone and in a hoodie because Tony had taken his protection away, but he'd still saved the man who'd tried to kill him.

And Tony had realized he needed to watch the kid, not ignore him. Because Tony had started to act up when he was ignored, and he hadn't had superpowers.

They'd found a comfortable rhythm after Peter turned down his offer to join the Avengers. Bimonthly sessions at the Stark Industries Labs. Occasional Fridays dinners at little dive restaurants where nobody recognized him. Warnings offered through Karen's chipper interface, and updates Friday gave him from the remnants of the Baby Monitor protocol.

But then Peter had snuck aboard an alien spaceship and Tony had made him an Avenger. They had fought side by side, and escaped death together, and everything that Tony had tried to keep buried had burst to the surface and refused to be contained.

And everyone else had seen it, hadn't they? Steve and Pepper and Shuri and even Robo Smurf, for Christ's sake. There was still something inside him that wanted to run and deny – that part that froze under pressure – that insisted he wasn't worthy. Peter deserved someone far better than Tony Stark to take an interest in him. He already had May, who loved him fiercely and properly and raised him just as well as any biological mother could. He wasn't alone, not like Tony had been, not really. But Tony still wanted him to have more, because he deserved it. He deserved everything.

He deserved a father.

So Tony had to step up.

"This is gonna be awkward." He chuckled self-deprecatingly, scared to death, but everything he'd meant to say was so close to the surface now, coursing through him like some kind of drug. And Peter was fine. Peter was solid. Peter was right in front of him, staring at him with those puppy dog eyes, head cocked a bit in confusion, and he deserved those truths that Tony had been hoarding for himself. They were both safe here, in their little corner of the Compound, safe from monsters and aliens and paparazzi.

Tony wanted Peter to be safe, always.

"I need to say this. So don't interrupt me. And maybe don't look at me either. That'd be great."

Peter nodded, pushing himself back into a sitting position, and Tony focused on a spot on the wall somewhere to his left.

"A couple nights ago, before the whole world went to hell, I had a dream that Pepper was pregnant." He could somehow feel the change in Peter and risked a glance. The kid's nose was wrinkled in disgust. Tony wished he had something soft to chuck at him. "Don't make that face. One day puberty is gonna hit and you won't think that's so gross. Anyway, the dream felt so real that I was sure it was true. But she assured me that it wasn't. Said I wasn't ready to be a dad because I was still walking around with an arc reactor on my chest, even though I didn't need it.

"My father was kind of a dick." As often as Tony had thought that, there was something about saying it aloud which was freeing and painful all at once. "Cold. Distant. Your stereotypical rich miser. He was so busy reliving his glory days with Capsicle – I've been choking on that irony for almost a decade – that he never took any interest in me. I started at MIT when I was fifteen, and that still wasn't good enough. He never said that he loved me, so I just assumed that he didn't." For a moment Tony thought of all he'd learned too late – videocassettes and legacy and a map for an element that saved his life. "Maybe I was wrong about that, but I'll never know for sure. And after he died the man who became my father figure paid terrorists to murder me, so that was hardly a good example." Obadiah had never been cuddly or kind, but he'd been there more than his father had, and in some ways that betrayal had hurt even more than his father's death. His father may not have cared enough, but he'd never wished him harm.

"I never wanted to be a father. Figured I'd be awful at it, so why screw up some kid like I'd been screwed up, and besides, what woman would want to put up with me for the long haul."

Peter made some noise of protest, and Tony closed his eyes so he wouldn't be tempted to look at the kid's face. His control was already beginning to slip, and he hadn't said anything he needed to yet. "'Eh, I'm talking remember. Pepper's a saint. Here's the only advice I'll ever give you about women—when you find a smart one who can put up with you at your worst, then you should never let them go."

"The thing is, I realized something after Titan. That dream had been true, in a way. I was already a father."

He heard Peter's breath hitch, but Tony didn't open his eyes. He just couldn't. But the words kept spilling out of him, faster and faster, all coherent thought abandoning him in his desperate need to make the kid understand.

"I'm gonna be awful at this, I'm warning you now. I already kinda am. I didn't handle the Vulture thing great and I probably shouldn't have roped you into any of this in the first place. And I can't protect you. Not the way I want to. Not in this world when you can be in a multi-million dollar suit with every possible precaution and a purple maniac can still snap his fingers and make you disappear.

"But here's the thing. I don't want to be my father. You were dying in my arms and there were a dozen things I wanted to say to you and I didn't. So I'm going to say them now, and I'm going to keep saying them for as long as I can. Because I can't promise that either of us are going to make it out of this, but I'll be damned if I don't give everything I have to remake this world into a place worthy for you to grow up in.

"You're not alone, Peter. And you'll never be alone, because I'll always be there, caring about who you are and who you'll become. You don't have to impress me, because I'm already impressed. You impressed me from that very first day when I showed up in your apartment. And yeah, sometimes you're stupid and immature and reckless, but Christ I'm still all those things almost every day. You're already so much more than I've ever been, and I just want to make sure your heroism doesn't get you killed because the world needs the man you're going to become, not Spider Man but Peter Parker.

"And I need you even more than the world does." He ended on a whisper, and finally, finally he lowered his gaze to look at the kid who had turned him into such an emotional mess. _His son_ , his whole being whispered, and nothing in him protested. He would not deny this bond between them ever again.

Peter's eyes were bright, tears running down his face, and he looked like he was on the brink of some kind of collapse. And Tony simply could not bear to see him dissolve. He scrambled out of the chair, perched on the edge of the bed and pulled Peter in the embrace he'd been desperate for since he woke up in Wakanda.

His son melted against him, his face buried against Tony's neck and his arms wrapped around him with trembling super strength. Tony tried to convey that strength back to him, one hand rubbing up and down his back as he pressed a kiss to the top of his unruly curls.

"This definitely counts as a hug, champ," Tony said once he'd regained control of his voice. "No take backs this time. Or ever again."

The strangled sound Peter made into his chest might have been a laugh or a sob. Either way it stirred something warm and wonderful in Tony. "I love you, Peter," he said. For the first time in as long as he could remember he felt clean, and pure, and euphoric. Worthy. "And I always will."

Silence stretched between them, after. "You can talk now, you know. I don't think you've ever been quiet this long. It's kinda freaking me out."

Peter's voice was just a whisper fluttering against Tony's throat. "I didn't know you cared."

And that smarted, but it was okay, because Tony was done with missed signals and satellite parenting. He'd be better, going forward.

"Well I do. And you never have to doubt that ever again."

The hum Peter made in the back of his throat sounded like contentment, and that was enough. "I've got you, Peter," Tony swore. "From now on, I've always got you."

* * *

 **So that was supposed to be it, folks! But two more chapters have since come to mind. Should I keep going? Let me know what you think!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Guys, I was just blown away by your response to my last chapter. Thank you! I cherish each and every review, so please keep them coming. How could I not continue after that? So here's a not so little something for everyone who wanted to see May's reaction to Tony and Peter's newfound closeness.**

* * *

The problem with Tony Stark, May Parker decided, was that he was a genius.

The real problem with Tony Stark was that he was a selfish, womanizing ass, but that wouldn't have been a problem at all if he wasn't so damn smart. Because Peter wasn't swayed by money or notoriety, but from the moment he found out that the world's first outed superhero had graduated from MIT at the age of 17 he'd been absolutely enamored. "But May," he'd whined when she tried to argue that a man who flew around in a red suit flouting all international laws was not a good role model. "He built that suit himself while he was captured by terrorists. And it flies! How cool is that?"

It was not cool when Tony Stark made an ass of himself in front of Congress, or slept with every woman in the Sports Illustrated calendar, or got drunk and fired off the guns in his fancy suit at the middle of his birthday party. It was not cool when someone with a grudge against him attacked innocent bystanders at his Expo.

It was not cool when he took a wide eyed, good hearted teenager to Germany to face off against a legion of superheroes just because he'd gotten in a fight with his friends.

Tony Stark was not cool at all.

But May had never been able to shake Peter's hero worship of the man, no matter how many articles she left laying around about his disastrous personal life and questionable corporate decisions. Peter always had a counter argument, about alternative energy and new technologies and his apparently undying and only sometimes hidden love for his personal assistant turned CEO.

Then one day Tony Stark had shown up at her house, feeding her all kinds of bullshit about an internship Peter didn't even lie convincingly about, and May never should have fallen for it. Except that in person, Tony Stark was rather cool.

Aggravating suave and aggressively charming, his comment about how he couldn't believe she was anyone's aunt was unquestionably swarmy but she'd still gone with it because for just a few moments she'd been caught up in his aura. She had known what meeting his hero would mean for Peter.

That allure had long worn off.

Because Tony Stark kept secrets and Tony Stark lived recklessly and Tony Stark drug her kid into fights he had no business fighting. And Peter worked too hard to juggle his schoolwork and the internship and Peter took it hard when the internship wasn't working out and Peter had been lying to her for months because there wasn't an internship at all.

And that was Tony Stark's fault.

And now, through a freaky turn of events she most definitely didn't understand the whole world had gone to hell as half of everyone disappeared and somehow she and Peter found themselves living under the same roof as not just Tony Stark but also his entire superhero posse, as sad and fractured as it was.

It was going to be extra hard to keep Peter untainted by Tony's bad influence now, but May just hadn't had the heart to take him away when he pleaded to stay – not after she spent three excruciating days gradually coming to terms with the fact she might never see him again. She'd been unable to stop imagining all the awful things that could have happened to him and then he had called her out of the blue, safe and sorry and in Africa of all places.

She might not be able to say no to him for a very long time.

But that didn't mean she had to be comfortable with her new housemates. On her first morning in the Avengers Compound she woke at her usual hour with a brutal headache – she never drank scotch, she was definitely a tequila person – and drifted towards the kitchen, not sure she was mentally prepared to deal with a god or an alien before her first cup of coffee.

Lucky for her there was only one person in the kitchen, an unassuming man with hair graying at his temples, nursing a bowl of cereal at the end of the kitchen island. Peter had introduced everyone yesterday, but then a raccoon had said something and her brain had short circuited.

"Good morning," she said, immediately feeling foolish. Did heroes make small talk? Was that really the kind of question she was asking in her life right now?

"Morning," the man answered, smiling tentatively and gesturing to the seat next to him as if inviting her to sit down. "There's cereal in the cupboard and eggs and milk in the fridge. I just made a pot of coffee."

She didn't care who this man was, he was definitely her favorite. "I'll stick with the coffee," she said, pouring herself a cup in an extra large mug emblazoned with the Avengers logo. She'd given Peter a smaller, cheaper version for his twelfth birthday, and he'd refused to drink out of anything else for years.

"You're Peter's mother, right?" the man asked as she sat down beside him.

"Aunt, actually." The correction was automatic; she'd been making it for years, in a vain attempt to honor the memory of the woman whose place May had taken, when in her heart May knew she'd become Peter's mother long ago. "May Parker."

The man held out his hand. His grip was firm but his skin was clammy. "Dr. Bruce Banner."

May couldn't quite figure where he would fit in a band of superheroes, when he didn't look particular strong or strange or imposing. Peter could ramble off facts about every member of the Avengers and what was known about their secret or not so secret identity. May had never cared much as long as the world was safe. Thor was the only one who'd ever held her interest, and this was certainly not Thor.

"So what brings you here, Dr. Banner?" she asked as delicately as she could manage, because why the hell not. If she was going to live with superheroes she might as well get herself up to speed.

"What's my alter ego, you mean?" He sounded amused and looked embarrassed, and she decided she hadn't offended him too deeply.

"Mmmmhmmm."

He rubbed at the back of his neck, embarrassment definitely winning out. She wondered if he could be Ant-Man. That might be plenty embarrassing. "I'm a scientist. One of my experiments went wrong and I was exposed to massive amounts of radiation. So now when I get angry the … Other Guy comes out."

She looked at him blankly, trying to decipher what any of that meant.

"I turn into the Hulk."

"Oh." She didn't know much about the Hulk, but she could certainly pick him out of a lineup.

He chuckled dryly. "That about sums it up. Not a big Avengers fan, I take it?"

"Nah. I left all the fanboying to Peter."

"He seems like a good kid."

"The best."

She drank her coffee and Bruce ate his breakfast in companionable silence as May tried to keep her thoughts from spinning. But they went haywire again as a well-dressed redhead clicked into the room on stiletto heels.

Miss Virginia Potts.

The future Mrs. Tony Stark.

May had never understood that. At all.

On one hand she absolutely did. If one wanted to be a gold digger, Tony Stark was a dream target, not only unbelievable loaded but also not a wrinkled old man. If you could ignore the legions of STDs he was probably carrying, bring married to that man would not be much of a hardship.

But Virginia Potts was not your typical bimbo. The press had been brutal when their relationship went public, accusing the woman of sleeping her way from Mr. Stark's personal assistant to the CEO of his company. But their edge had softened over the years, as Stark Industries transformed from a heartless weapons manufacturer to one of the top three tech conglomerates in the world, spearheading multiple humanitarian efforts while keeping stock prices higher than ever. May had read the Woman of the Year article about her, and it was clear, no matter how she got her position, that she was extraordinarily clever and capable. Mr. Stark frequently gave her credit for his company's success, and while he was still occasionally tabloid fodder, one of the world's most infamous playboys looked more and more like a happily committed man.

When Peter had disappeared, May had called Stark Industries. Instead of being stonewalled by a squirrely receptionist she'd been connected to Miss Potts, who had revealed in a trembling voice that all she knew was that Mr. Stark was in space, but if she found any trace of Peter May would be the first to know. May had been impressed, despite herself, by the woman's grit and poise and kindness, and the obvious care she'd felt towards her missing sugar daddy. And after Peter had called her, somehow reactivating her brick of a phone, Miss Potts had called shortly afterwards with an update and a promise to send a driver to bring her to the Compound.

May was not quite as impressed that the woman had chosen to wear a power suit and absurd heels to what May was starting to consider a wake for the end of the world.

"Bruce," Miss Potts said warmly as she entered and the man looked up from his bowl to grin. He stood and she met him in a fierce embrace. "It's so good to have you back."

"It's good to be back," he said as he pulled away. "Though I wish the circumstances were better." He leaned back against the island as if all the strength had drained from him. "It's crazy out there, Pepper. The things I've seen. You wouldn't believe it."

"Things have gotten a bit out of hand here too, as of late."

Bruce ran a hand over his hair. "How's Tony?" he asked.

May watched closely, blatantly eavesdropping, but it served them right for ignoring that she was there. The woman's ultra-professional veneer seemed to falter. "Things got bad for a while there. But he's been better, lately."

"Nat filled me in a bit on what happened."

Miss Potts raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow and a blush crept up Dr. Banner's neck. "Stop."

"I didn't say anything," she said smugly.

"So Tony finally smartened up and asked you to marry him."

"Yeah." Miss Potts extended her hand and flashed a diamond ring that had probably cost more than May had made in her whole life. "You know how it can take Tony a very long time to work his way towards an obvious conclusion."

"For a genius he can be a pretty huge idiot."

Miss Potts hummed in agreement. "So where's Nat this morning?" she asked, nonchalant.

"In the gym. Thought she might feel better if she hit something."

Bruce seemed to realize his mistake just a few moments before May did. She had not expected the Avenger's lives to be a soap opera, but at least she'd get some entertainment out of this unorthodox arrangement. Miss Potts grinned triumphantly. "I knew it!"

Bruce slumped harder against the island and sighed heavily. "There's nothing to know. We talked about running off together in Sokovia, but then I disappeared without her for two years. Now's hardly the time to make any sense of that. We missed our moment."

"Tony and I have missed tons of moments over the years. I could schedule a press conference, if that would help."

That pulled a faltering smile from the man. "Thank you, but I don't see how that would."

Miss Potts chuckled at a joke only she seemed to understand before asking, "Have you seen Tony today?"

Bruce shook his head. "I thought he was with you."

"He was. But he was gone when I woke up."

"He's probably in the lab."

"I already checked there. And the lounge."

"Then I got nothing."

"Friday," Miss Potts said nonsensically to the air.

Nonsensically, the air answered. "Yes, Mrs. Boss," said a chipper, disembodied voice with a lilting accent.

"Don't call me that. I'm not Mrs. Boss yet."

"I'm sorry, but Boss's programming insists that I refer to you as such."

Bruce snickered, but sobered quickly at Miss Potts' glower. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

"Definitely not. That's all Tony. He and I don't program together anymore. Not after—"

May was curious to know after _what_ , but asking would have drawn attention to herself, so she kept quiet.

"Friday, please locate Mr. Stark."

"I'm sorry Mrs. Boss, but my programming also forbids me from revealing Boss's location."

"Can you at least tell me whether he'd inside the Compound?"

"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Boss."

"Tony's going to hear about this," Miss Potts growled, and then she rounded on May with flashing eyes. "Where's Peter?"

"Well good morning to you too," May snapped under the sudden attention. "Fancy realizing I was here."

"I'm sorry. That was rude of me. Let's start again. Good morning, Ms. Parker. Have you seen your nephew this morning?'

"Have you ever been around teenagers? It's before noon and he doesn't have school. He's almost certainly asleep."

"Could you verify that for me, please?"

"Why?" May asked, suddenly wary. "You don't think Mr. Stark could have _taken him someplace_ , do you?"

"Not exactly. I'm just ruling out possibilities. Could you check on him, please?"

May's stomach churned all the way to Peter's room. She rued last night's scotch and all the coffee she'd drank on an empty stomach. She rued fighting all her mother hen instincts and not peeking in on Peter when she woke up this morning. Most of all she rued ever letting Tony Stark into their lives.

The Compound doors were airtight, so there was no light or darkness spilling out in the hallway to suggest whether Peter was awake. It seemed unlikely, considering the events of the past few days. Peter had always been a later sleeper, but it had gotten worse recently. Recently, as in about the time he'd started spending his nights fighting crime in spandex instead of getting his beauty rest.

She rapped softly on the door. "Peter, honey, are you awake? I'm coming in."

She heard no response, but she hadn't expected to. The door was unlocked, and swung open with no resistance.

Peter was, indeed, asleep in bed. He was just not asleep alone. The sight of _Tony Stark_ sprawled across Peter's red and gold comforter stopped May in her tracks. He was flat on his back in a navy robe and matching pajama bottoms, Egyptian silk no doubt, breathing noticeably through his half open mouth as Peter burrowed into his side, one arm thrown across the billionaire's chest.

And May couldn't think. All the insanity of the past week came to head in one incomprehensible image. Her brain had finally reached the limit of its processing ability.

Peter was a cuddler. May knew that well. When he'd first come to stay with them Peter had spent months in May and Ben's bed, curled up between them, pressingly himself against his newfound guardians with a desperation May had found a little frightening until she'd started to love him back just as fiercely. He'd grown up, and only sought out his aunt and uncle after the worst of nightmares.

Until Ben. The night he'd died Peter had come knocking on May's door and they'd cried each other to sleep, his face in the crook of her neck. For weeks they fell asleep pressed together, futily trying to chase off each other's nightmares, and May finally understood Peter's desperate need to clutch on to someone so that they too wouldn't leave.

Time passed. They both learned to cope, and pretended to heal, and Peter went back to only seeking her out after the darkest of nightmares. Or the harshest of realities, when a patrol when wrong, and someone wasn't saved, and he needed her to run her hand through his hair and whisper reassurances into his shoulder.

But Tony Stark was a stranger. Tony Stark wasn't family. There was no reason that Peter should have been seeking comfort from Tony Stark when May was in the room next door.

There was even less reason for Tony Stark to provide it.

May heard a clicking noise behind her and spun. Miss Potts was snapping photos on her Starkphone, an incomprehensible smile on her face. The whole Compound had gone mad.

"What the hell is going on here?" May managed to whisper, but barely, her harsh voice sounding loud in the quiet room.

"We should let them sleep," Miss Potts said, backing away.

May took one last look at her slumbering nephew, could make no sense of it, and stepped outside.

"Should I be concerned?" she asked as soon as the door closed. "I'm a little confused here, because aside from your boyfriend's tendency to drag my underaged nephew into dangerous situations, I didn't think they actually knew each other that well."

Miss Pott's sobered almost instantly. "I think something happened on their trip. Tony was pretty shaken up. Whatever it was, they must have gotten closer."

"Well pardon me for not being over the moon that my impressionable teenage son bonded with an infamous playboy over some shared emotional trauma said playboy was directly responsible for."

"Tony's more than what the media portrays him as." It was hard to stay quite so upset when Miss Potts was utterly calm. When May got hysterical Peter got hysterical, and they both burned through their emotions until they were exhausted. But Miss Potts had snuffed all the oxygen from the fire of her rage, and May felt it flicker and start to die. "I understand your concern. It's not unwarranted. If anyone could write a treatise on Anthony Stark's flaws its me. I won't deny that he's made mistakes, and still makes them. And anything too touchy feely usually makes him run for the hills, which makes that in there," she tilted her head to the closed door, "particularly extraordinary." She smiled then, and shook her head, and May was struck with the thought that maybe this woman too wasn't quite able to believe it. "It's true that Tony could hurt Peter. It's also true that Peter could hurt Tony."

"He wouldn't," May protested. "That boy has never hurt anybody."

"I believe you. I don't think Tony will hurt him either. They're good for each other, it seems."

Maybe, just maybe, that could be true. Because Peter had just returned from a battle with some evil alien overlord, and Peter was sleeping soundly, and Peter was safe, and Peter had not woken her with blood-curdling nightmares as she'd half expected. But there was a fear curling in May's chest that refused to be silenced, whispering that the consequences of this closeness could be dire. That it would be easy for it all to go wrong. That a full retreat would be far safer.

That she should never have let him stay here.

"I'll be the judge of that."

Miss Potts met her gaze, echoing her challenge, and May realized that this woman would go as far to protect Tony as she would to protect Peter.

The ghost in the house broke their standoff. "Mrs. Boss, you have a video call from Stark Headquarters. The chairman of the board is requesting your immediate attention."

Finally her calm shattered. "Damn it. I have to take this. The board's pissed that I'm not in New York right now. After all this time, they've decided to be mad again that I'm sleeping with Tony. You think with half the people in the world there'd be half as much bullshit, but unfortunately not." She straightened her blazer and smoothed her hands down her pencil skirt. "Friday, open a video link in Conference Room A and inform the chairman I'll be with him shortly."

"Give him a chance," Miss Potts implored before she hustled down the hallway in her towering heals. "He might just surprise you."

* * *

What surprised May was how human the Avengers were, even the ones who weren't human at all.

As the days passed she learned their names and their aliases, their powers and quirks, and most of all, their griefs. Who they had lost, and who they were fighting for. She knew that Rocket mourned for a tree named Groot and a ship full of teammates and Nebula mourned for her sister just as strongly as Clint mourned his wife and kids, although their grief was more likely to manifest as rage.

May had never been a particularly good housewife. But she had kept Peter afloat through loss twice, and one of those times she'd also been drowning. She knew how to order takeout and heat up lasagna and pizza rolls. Knew that sometimes a dozen donuts – or six dozen, as it may be – could start a morning on the right foot. Knew that structure was the best way to reestablish normalcy. So she made shopping lists – because no one would let her out of the Compound, even with the armed entourage that was actually sent to do their errands. She played games with the children, braiding Lila and Cassie's hair while turning their mothers' disappearances into a fairytale, hoping all the while that it would indeed somehow have a happy ending. And she insisted that they all eat dinner together.

The voice in the walls had been happy to help her find Peter, and he'd led May straight to all the other Avengers. She felt like she was stepping into a war room, with every intense gaze fixed upon her. Only Peter's held any warmth. But she had spent the past few hours concocting this plan, and she would not be deterred.

"Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes," she announced, crossing her arms over her chest.

It was like she had said something ludicrous, the disbelief that crossed the dozen weary faces. It was Captain America who finally responded, measuredly polite but also a touch condescending. "Thank you ma'am, but I'm afraid we're in the middle of something of the utmost importance."

Once upon a time that might have discouraged May. But she'd buried her husband and parented Spiderman, and every time her heart had broken her spine had strengthened. Cassie had asked when her daddy would be back, and May had resolved to bring him. She would not be deterred by a patriotic war criminal. "There are two little girls downstairs who would like to spend some time with their fathers. And even superheroes need to eat – at least I presume so."

She didn't feel bad about using the children to get Clint and Scott on her side, because she was a poor surrogate for what they actually needed. The others were harder to read as their gazes shifted between Steve and Tony.

"You didn't make it from scratch, did you?" Tony cracked.

She scowled, silently damning Tony Stark, but Peter bit back a smile so familiar that it bled off some of the panic that had been building inside her all day.

"Of course not," she answered with all the dignity she could muster.

"Well I'm starving," Peter declared. "Thanks, May."

"You're always starving." Mr. Stark said it with such easy familiarity, and May still didn't understand. "All right team. The woman of the house has spoken. Den mother? I'll think of something clever. Anyway, chow's ready. Dinner break officially called. We can reconvene afterwards."

And that was that. Every morning they scattered to their separate corners doing God knows what – training and strategizing and inventing or whatever. But dinner was served each night at seven, and Tony programmed a series of obnoxious reminders so no one could forget it.

Most of the time they dispersed afterwards, but sometimes at least a few of them gathered in the lounge to watch movies or old sitcoms. Tonight it was Friends. Thor's general confusion over "the irrational behavior of Midgardians" was typically the best part of such evenings. Steve Rogers also had some colorful commentary, for while he might have had the face of a young man he had the heart and morals of a grandpa, and therefore a vague disapproval of the characters' apparent joblessness.

Tonight the best part was the way Peter had curled into her side, unselfconscious as he watched TV with what was left of Earth's mightiest heroes. Clinging on to one's aunt was surely not cool, but he was utterly at ease. May could not have been more grateful, because she'd wanted to clutch on to him constantly since they'd been reunited, but most of the time he was locked away in super secret hero meetings.

As far as she could tell he was doing okay – okay as any of them were, all things considered. She'd feared all this planning to save the world would be too much for him, but he showed up for dinner most nights in good spirits, rambling at her about all sorts of things she didn't understand – but his enthusiasm was obvious. Most of the heroes seem to have taken to him like a kid brother, and Cassie and Lila adored him.

He only woke her with nightmares once or twice a week, though she'd learned to recognize the distinct pattern of Mr. Stark's footsteps, which sometimes paused outside of Peter's door and soon retreated, and sometimes never left Peter's room at all. Peter looked tired, but they all did, because they all were. He refused to tell her about the nightmares, just whispered that they were better when she was there, and if Miss Potts was able to pull the knowledge from Mr. Stark she did not break his confidence.

So May watched Peter and Tony orbit around one another, still utterly in the dark about the forging of their bond.

In the end it was a nightmare that gave her the explanation she was looking for.

But it wasn't Peter's nightmare.

One second Peter was laughing at something snarky Chandler said and the next he'd gone rigid, wide eyes seeking out Stark in his armchair, pouring over something on his Starkpad. May was struck in that moment by how much Peter looked like her childhood golden retriever, who had always been able to sense danger a few seconds before anyone else.

Tony was asleep in his chair, tablet forgotten, seemingly at peace. And then, out of nowhere, he whined.

The sound was low, keening, and obviously distressed. Everyone in the room turned, the moment suddenly uncomfortably vulnerable, but no one moved, not even his fiancé.

But then Peter was gone from her side, across the room so fast that May couldn't comprehend how he'd ever kept his powers from her for so long when he was so terrible at secrecy.

He'd already perched himself on the end of the chair by the time "Peter," crossed Stark's lips in a desolate moan.

May felt like she'd fallen off a pier into frigid waters. But Peter was calm as he grasped Stark's shoulder. "Wake up, Tony," he commanded, shaking him slightly. But Mr. Stark didn't wake, just whimpered again. "Not Peter."

That seemed to rattle Peter, because he grasped his other shoulder, and his words tumbled out fast and high pitched. "Come on Tony. You gotta wake up, man. It's okay." When that didn't work he shoved him hard. "Please, Mister Stark."

Mr. Stark's eyes flew open and May watched as agonized horror melted into euphoric relief, and then he lunged forward and wrapped Peter in a bear hug. "Oh thank God," he exclaimed, burying her head in Peter's curls.

May could hear the others shuffling off to remove themselves from this obviously private moment, but May was too lost in the memory of Peter's face showing up on her phone after she'd nearly given up all hope. Stark's expression mirrored exactly how she had felt. So she listened as Peter rambled a litany of reassurances. "It's okay. It was just a dream. I'm here. We're both right here. Solid and everything."

Something about that line, incomprehensible to May, made Tony pull away. His eyes were still wild, and his hands trembled on Peter's shoulders.

"You need to get downstairs and let Bruce run some tests," he commanded.

"I really don't."

"Don't argue with me, kid," he practically shouted, and both Peter and May flinched. Tony scrubbed a hand over his face, looking contrite. "Please," he implored, tone softer but equally desperate.

"I don't need Dr. Banner to run any tests. Shuri already ran them." Peter pulled the fancy phone he'd gotten in Africa from his pocket and shoved it towards Mr. Stark.

"You let a stranger experiment on you?" May felt the same thrill of horror rush through her at that thought as she heard in Mr. Stark's voice.

But Peter shrugged, nonplussed. "That stranger had just saved your life. She was trying to figure out how her brother's powers worked, and she needed another data set. Besides, I figured she could tell me whether it had stopped."

May knew she couldn't leave now, not until she understand what had stopped. She was in too deep.

Peter handed over the phone and swiped across the screen. "It had. As you can see." He pointed at something on a particular image. "Those are mitochondria."

Tony scowled. "I know what a mitochondria is, kid." He swiped a few times, enlarging one of the images. "Damn, that was some spider."

Peter responded with a shrug and a bashful smile. "Shuri said degeneration was catastrophic on a molecular level. But my cells are okay. She said they were victorious and at peace, or something like that." He shook his head. "It sounded way cooler when she said it."

Mr. Stark blew out a long, extended breath. "Watch it. She's out of your league. And dating a princess isn't nearly as fun as Hallmark makes it seem. So much protocol."

Peter pulled a face, knocking his shoulder so hard into Stark's that the man actually pitched to the side. "First off, no. It's not like that. Secondly, Shuri is queen now, which I've told you before. And thirdly, you said you weren't going to give me any more advice about girls."

"Women. I said I wasn't going to give you any more advice about women. Not girls. Gosh, you're like a baby. And I guess you were listening. I didn't know you could stay quiet that long and still be awake."

Peter rolled his eyes, apparently not nearly as offended as May was. "She's just brilliant, is what I'm saying. Did you see her lab? She designed most of that herself. It was awesome!"

"Not really, kid. I was a little busy not dying."

"She said she'd give us a tour sometime."

"Us?"

"Well, I'll need a ride." He paused, and May recognized the playful gleam in his eye. "I figure Nat can take me in the Quinjet."

"Traitor!"

Peter laughed at Mr. Stark's exaggerated distress, and the sound cleared the room of the heaviness that had fallen over it. "You still love me."

May tensed, waiting for a stuttered awkward denial that never came. "Yeah," Mr. Stark said after a beat, dropping his chin to rest on Peter's head, with obvious and uncharacteristic affection, leaving May once again flabbergasted. He pulled back after a few seconds. "Let Bruce take a look at you anyway, all right?"

"Okay."

"Okay? You're not gonna fight me on this?"

"Nope." Peter gripped Mr. Stark's shoulder for a moment, and then smiled like the angel he was before practically bouncing out of the room.

And maybe that was the best time for May to make an exit of the nearly empty room, but Miss Potts was approaching Mr. Stark like a wounded animal and May still didn't really understand what had caused the man's breakdown. And she needed to understand so she could parent Peter properly. So she could make that decision that was always looming – should they stay or should they go?

"What's going on, Tony?" the woman asked softly once she stood in front of his chair, one hand reaching out to trace his hairline. "You keep having these nightmares and you won't tell me what they're about."

His hand darted out and tugged her down into his lap. After a quiet, "oomph" she recovered and resituated herself, her hand making its way fully into his hair as he pressed his face against her shoulder.

"The worst nightmares are the ones that are true," he mumbled.

"Is this about what happened when you and Peter went into space?" she asked.

"Yeah." He sounded like a man who'd just uttered a death sentence, and despite every nasty thought May had ever had towards him his distress evoked unexpected sympathy.

"Want to tell me about it?"

May was certain that he wouldn't, and the mystery would keep haunting her, and she'd have to use this evening as a springboard to finally wear Peter down into telling her. But she was just able to hear Mr. Stark's voice rasping into Miss Pott's shoulder, and May braced herself for something that she was certainly not going to like.

"There were seven of us on that planet when they started to disappear. The first four were so quick they barely seemed to know what was happening. It was painless. There one second and gone the next. But Peter…" Tony heaved an agonized sigh and something inside May broke in anticipation, leaving a paralyzing fear that she still couldn't explain. "God, Pep. He felt it. He knew what was going to happen. He called out to me and he was terrified and I just froze. There were a dozen things I wanted to say to him and I couldn't say a fucking one. All I could do was hold him as he disintegrated in my arms, knowing that I hadn't been able to stop the bogeyman who'd haunted me for years from taking one of the few bright spots in this shitty world."

And May felt sick, not sure if she wanted to throw up or pass out – her baby, so alone and terrified, on an alien planet, and if he hadn't been in space would she had been the one to watch him fade away?

Except –

"Tony, Peter's downstairs," Miss Potts said, horrified yet absolutely calm. "He's okay. He wasn't one of the ones taken."

"I'm not crazy, Pep. I saw his arm start to flake away. But the kid's a fucking marvel. He put himself back together or something. And then, cause he watched his uncle bleed out in front of him, he made me promise not to die. And that was the hardest promise I've ever made, because I was in a real bad way. But he hadn't left me alone there, so I couldn't leave him alone."

For a moment the truth of that hung in the air, and May wished she could go back to the time when she did not understand how close she had come to losing Peter and how in saving him she had lost a piece that would never be hers again.

"I'll have to buy him a car then, as a thank you present."

Tony emitted a strangled laugh. "Why Potts, that's the most _Tony Stark_ thing I have ever heard you say."

"After all these years you were bound to rub off on me eventually," she said wryly, her hand charting a constant soothing pattern across his back.

"I'm so proud." But his exuberance faded quickly and he slumped back against her. May started to wonder how she could slip out without being noticed. "I still see it every time I close my eyes – how terrified he was. And my brain keeps changing the ending. He always leaves me."

"That's awful," Virginia said softly. "But the truth is that Peter is right downstairs. You both made it back. And you can't know what the future holds, but you're both here now. So you should tell him all those things that you wanted to, and make the most of the time that you've got."

"I did," Tony answered. "Tell him. Most of the things, anyway."

"Wait. Did I hear that right? Did Tony Stark really have a conversation about _feelings_? Unprompted? I am going to have to buy the kid a car."

"I am all for this plan, of course, but he doesn't even know how to drive," Tony said, some of the pain bleeding away and suddenly all the snark and the nicknames and the jokes made sense.

"I think I know someone who could teach him."

"I do love a nice drive. Plenty of open roads around here."

"I was talking about Happy."

Tony pulled away from her with an exaggerated pout. "You wound me, Potts." His eyebrows raised. "That is kinda a genius idea, though. Imagine his face when I tell him. That's definitely going to be his first assignment when we get him back."

Miss Potts whispered something May couldn't hear, and then they were leaving the room hand in hand, and while Tony didn't seem to notice May from her place on the couch, his fiancé fixed her with a deliberate stare, _I told you so_ radiating out of every perfect feature.

* * *

May gave herself a week to process what she had seen, and watch the two interact in the light of their terrible shared secret. She didn't ask Peter about it, despite her persistent urge. But her silence was question enough. He came to her one night and confessed everything – how _suddenly everything had been wrong_ and _he didn't want to go_ and _Tony's arms held me together until my cells could do it themselves_.

And damn if it wasn't impossible to dislike the man after that.

They often disappeared together after dinner, locking themselves away in the lab to work on changes to the Iron Man suit, a pastime that never failed to fill Peter with exuberant, childlike glee.

May had never really understood the need to tear something apart and put it back together. Building something from scratch was even more foreign. It was Ben who had taught Peter how to work on cars. They'd had no place to keep one in the city, but Ben had a buddy with a garage and he and Peter would often spend Sunday afternoons there. Sometimes she would go to drink beer and watch them work. And even though she didn't know a thing about carburetors and would prefer to just buy something off the lot that ran, it was obvious how much joy they found solving a problem together. Those were still some of her favorite memories.

And now here was her dear boy, bent over a far more complicated project with a different man, talking a mile a minute in a different vocabulary that she still didn't understand. The image overwhelmed her with so many emotions and so much unfettered fondness that for a moment all she could do was stand at the door of the workshop and watch. As much as it filled May with anxious worry, there was also an unmistakable warmth. Because half the world had ended, but Peter was smiling like there might be some good in whatever was left. And May had begun to hope that might be true, that the world could mend and for this wonderful boy that feeling could last.

Either way, she would find out.

She cleared her throat and both looked up, her boy with a soft grin and the man with what seemed like a flash of fear, quickly covered by smooth indifference. "Peter, honey, Mr. Stark and I need a few words in private. And don't just linger outside the doorway. I know that hearing of yours is enhanced. So get those spider senses upstairs, and don't try to eavesdrop."

Peter looked to Stark, and the man smiled, though it looked thin to May. "Go on, kid. She doesn't have any kind of baked good in hand. I think I'll be okay."

Peter looked at him for a long moment, as if some conversation was passing between them that no one else could hear, and May didn't like it. But finally Peter capitulated. "See you both later."

Stark watched as Peter left the room. May watched Stark, and while his gaze eventually shifted, it seemed obvious that Mr. Anthony Stark, the playboy superhero: rich, brilliant, confident, was having trouble meeting her eyes.

He sunk down on a stool with a heavy sigh. "Peter's a smart kid. Even if he doesn't hear you kill me, he'll put the pieces together if I disappear. I like to think he'd miss me a little."

The problem, May knew, was that he'd miss him a lot.

"He's gotten to you too, hasn't he?"

"Pardon?"

"One day he's just a stranger with a big heart and puppy dog eyes, and the next you're head over heels in love with him and you have no idea how it happened."

The use of the "l" word was a test, and Tony looked at her as if he knew it. But he hardly paused before he answered, "Yeah," rubbing a hand over his goatee. "It's the damndest thing." He blew out a breath. "I think _that_ might be his actual superpower."

"Ben and I were going to give him to Child Services." She was not quite sure what made her voice her darkest secret. She had never told anyone that terrible truth that still sometimes kept her up at night. She supposed it meant she did trust Mr. Stark on some level, because the man she had feared would surely have told Peter to drive a wedge between them, or maybe jut out of carelessness or capricious fun. But the man who had woken from a nightmare desperate for confirmation that Peter was solid—the man looking at her now with the proper amount of wide-eyed horror at the terrible repercussions her younger self's weakness might have wrought—she knew, even as she struggled to accept his role in their lives, she knew he meant Peter no deliberate harm.

And there was no one, since Ben, who she could confide in about her extraordinary nephew, even as he grew increasingly extraordinary and she became more and more out of her depth.

"That's awful, I know. I still feel guilty about it. But there wasn't any sort of guardianship agreement. Ben and I married young, right out of college, and we'd agreed to not even think about kids for at least five years. Ben and Richard weren't close—I'd only met him at the wedding. And then suddenly he and Anne were gone and someone called us out of the blue to ask if we could take their six year old son. We both just sort of panicked. Our apartment was small. We hardly made enough money to feed ourselves, let alone someone else. We didn't think we could do it. So we agreed to take him in, but we figured it would just be a week or two, so he would have some time to get his bearings before he went into the system. By the time the custody papers were drawn up we'd announce we couldn't sign them."

May felt sick in her stomach recounting this, and Mr. Stark looked pale, the hand clenching the edge of his workbench actually trembling. But May also felt something loosen in her chest as the burden of her secret was shared with another.

"We knew within hours that there was no way in hell we could give him back. He was adrift, absolutely lost and terrified, and yet so heartbreakingly polite. And we just loved him, unconditionally and beyond reason. Ben and I stayed up all night figuring how we could make it work, and we never regretted a thing, not when we had to get an even dingier apartment or when Ben sold his car to pay for Peter to go to Midtown. Every sacrifice has been more than worth it. That boy upstairs is the best thing that ever happened to me, next to marrying Ben, and he's the only reason I was able to survive Ben's passing."

"I'd do anything for him, you see," May said, finally getting to her point. "I know Peter cares for you. I'm willing to put up with that, against my better judgement, for his sake. But Peter has already lost two fathers. And I know I can't make you promise not to die on him, considering your extracurricular activities and the current state of affairs. I think he'd be ok if you died, eventually, because he's no stranger to that kind of loss. But what he wouldn't be able to abide—what I'll do anything to protect him from—is abandonment. So if you think there's any chance at all, once the world is saved and you go back to your tower, that you'll tire of him, and find some other super kid to humor, then I will drag him back to Queens tomorrow. Because I'd rather he hate me for awhile then spend a moment wondering what he could have done to make you lose interest. And so help me God, if you tell me you're in this for the long haul and then break his heart anyway, I will make you suffer, and I won't be kind enough to use a poisoned walnut date loaf."

She could feel the fierce need to protect Peter simmering in her chest, and it was only when she really looked at the shocked look on Mr. Stark's face that she realized she'd just threatened one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Who also happened to be Iron Man.

His shock softened into something unreadable. Tony unclenched his trembling hands and dropped them into his lap before fixing May with a clear eyed stare. "I'm going to leave Peter Stark Industries."

"Excuse me?" Of all possible responses that had never crossed her mind.

"I'm going to wait until this whole end of the world mess gets straightened out before I file the paperwork – the company's giving Pepper the run around right now and I'm missing half my lawyers. But as soon as that's fixed I want to make him my legal heir."

"This isn't about money," was all May could sputter. This was almost harder to fathom than a talking raccoon – that her sweet, considerate nephew who pulled bits of technology from the trash could inherit an empire she'd so bitterly disdained, built with blood money and all the vices of wealth.

"You're right. It isn't about money at all. It's about legacy. Which was a word my old man used, and I thought it was a slight, or a publicity scheme, but I think I finally understand. If I wanted to leave Peter money I'd just leave him money. But I want to leave Peter Stark Industries, because I know he could do so much good with it. I'm not proud of how I got my fortune, not anymore. I've tried to turn the company around, but the truth is Dad and I got rich selling weapons to the highest bidder, and that's a ledger that all Iron Man's heroics will never truly blot out. But Peter's got a blank slate, and I know with his brains and his heart he could do something extraordinary with the right resources. Because you're right. There's something about that kid."

"So I guess you're not planning on getting bored with him, then." It was all May could think to say. Because the thought of Peter, her Peter, as head of Stark Industries was so incomprehensible, but the rightness of it was starting to take hold. The likelihood that he really could make some outstanding difference was dizzying. So was the look on Stark's face, raw and honest like she'd felt when she confessed her awful secret.

"Much of what the press says about me is bullshit, but there's one thing they got right. I'm a selfish man. When I asked Peter to come with me to Germany I didn't think about how monumentally inappropriate it was. I needed more fire power, so I ran a search for someone with useful skills. I realize now that was a bad call. I never should have roped him into all of this, not at his age. But I can't even apologize, because if I hadn't taken him to Germany then I wouldn't know him now, and I can't bring myself to wish that away."

He chuckled, the sound dark and self-deprecating. There were circles under his eyes that the world never saw, and a vulnerable sincerity May had never heard in any of his press conferences.

"It's easy to swear I won't abandon Peter, because I'm not sure I can stand who I am without him anymore. I never meant to get so attached to him. I don't really get attached to people, as a rule. I have no idea what I did to deserve the way he looks at me. But he makes me want to be the man he thinks I am. Maybe, if I just keep seeing myself through his eyes, I can get there."

Stark dragged his gaze up from his workbench. There was something in his agonized expression that reminded May of the day she'd come home from a school conference and cried, because the whole time Peter's teacher read them his essay on how much he loved his aunt and uncle she could think only of how she'd almost given him up.

Here was the man that a woman like Virginia Potts could fall in love with, no matter how it might ruin her or challenge her good sense.

Here was a man who Peter could love, in his boundless unconditional way.

"I know I'm a shitty role model, and I get why this whole situation freaks you out. It would have been better if he picked Cap or Barton to play surrogate father – hell, even Thor. But I want to do right by him. So please, don't take him back to Queens. I'll beg, if you want me to. I'll do anything."

The problem with Tony Stark, May Parker decided, was that underneath the money and the bravado he was just as flawed as everyone else—not more so and not less.

The real problem with Tony Stark was that he wasn't a problem at all.

A wildcard – absolutely. Obnoxious – sometimes. Unexpected – definitely. But not a threat. Not to Peter, who was ostensibly safer in a Compound surrounded by superheroes than in the anarchy that was post apocalypse Queens. And therefore not to May.

"Do I have to get on my knees here? Is there something you want? A car? Diamonds? A beach house? Because I'm not above bribery. The press got that right too."

She let him worry just a few moments longer. Because he had made mistakes, and Peter's safety was not something to be trifled with. But she got no joy from the way he squirmed, not anymore.

"It gets easier," she offered, smiling at his confused hum. "Being a parent," she explained. "After a while you get too tired to be so terrified all the time."

She watched him closely to catch the moment relief sparked, the tension draining from his shoulders. It was as if a weight had lifted from her own as well.

Peter did deserve a father, after all.

"Welcome to the family, Tony."

* * *

 **So, there's definitely only one more chapter of this. But, there may just be a two part post Infinity War 2 sequel from Peter's point of view, if anyone is interested …**


	6. Chapter 6

Even though he called him on it several times a day, sometimes Tony forgot that Peter was just a kid.

They'd retreated to the workshop after dinner, as usual, to work on the containment chamber for the Time Stone. There was something about the design that was just out of Tony's grasp, and the more he stared and fiddled the closer the answer seemed. But something kept breaking his concentration, a nervous thrumming assaulting his eardrums.

He looked up to see Peter rapping his stylus against the table.

"What wrong with you?" Somehow the boy managed to look both exhausted and buzzed simultaneously, his eyes wide but sleepy, and his body practically trembling with potential energy.

Peter flinched, dropping the stylus. "What? Nothing. Sorry."

"Yeah, that wasn't convincing. Am I _boring_ you?"

Peter hesitated, but the kid was too good to lie. "Well, kinda. We've just been staring at this for _hours_."

That was Tony's process. He'd disappear into his workshop for days, relying on Pepper to bring him meals and remind him to shower and put her foot down when an altogether excessive amount of time had passed. He might be flighty and distractible by nature, but give him a problem with a solution just beyond his reach and he could _focus_.

But he hadn't always been that way. It wasn't until MIT, when he'd needed an excuse to hide from the parties, that he'd learned to bunker down and ignore his instincts to switch gears every hour.

Peter put on spandex and fought crime, so he obviously had different coping mechanisms.

"You're right. You should call it a night. Look at it with fresh eyes in the morning."

Peter nodded, but he was staring at Tony a little too intently, as if he was trying to decide whether Tony was annoyed. "Are you coming?" he asked, both tentative and eager.

"Nah. I'm gonna keep working." The answer was close, he could feel it, and it wasn't even eleven – far too early to turn in.

"Oh." Peter looked down and dragged his foot against the floor. "I could stay a little longer," he offered, but a yawn overtook him as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"No, you're done. Go and do whatever teenyboppers do when they're not up all night trying to save the world. Binge Netflix? Play Candycrush? Create a new meme?"

"Ok. Goodnight," Peter said softly, and then he was gone.

And something in the room shifted.

It was the damndest thing. For most of his life Tony had been most comfortable alone in his lab. He'd had to adjust his routine when he gained a shadow, and surprisingly he hadn't minded. But now he could blare his music as loud as he wanted – Peter's ears were sensitive, so he kept it to a manageable level – and swear without consequence – because he tried to mind his mouth around the kid. He could grouse at his robots without feeling self-conscious and even trash the lab if he needed to.

And yet …

The music seemed a little distracting and the swearing self-indulgent, and Peter was a much better conversationalist than Dum-E.

There was no one to be awed at his genius. No one to put tools down in front of him. No one to think of things he did not.

Something had changed, irrevocably, after Titan. And apparently there was no going back.

In an hour he'd gotten nowhere besides frustrated. Pushing the incomplete prototype aside, he scraped his stool against the floor and gave into the inevitable.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., locate Peter."

"Master Parker is in the main lounge. Forty seven minutes ago he asked me to access my entertainment database."

"Is he alone?" Tony asked.

"Affirmative, Boss." The kid was surely capable of watching a movie alone. Teenagers probably even liked that sort of thing. But there was something about the way Peter had left the lab that was bothering Tony. Something in his tone had been off.

So he made an extra-large batch of popcorn and brought it to the lounge. Peter was easy to find sprawled out on the couch in front of the TV, music from some suspenseful movie blasting through the air. Peter looked up before Tony had even stepped in the door, a grin brightening his features.

Tony set the popcorn bowl on the cushion in front of him and then tapped on his ankles. "Lift these," he directed. "I'm gonna sit here."

Peter started to pull his knees up to sit, but Tony frowned. "I said lift, not move." Peter followed directions better the second time, and Tony slid under his legs. The kid looked at him funny, but he weighed next to nothing, and the popcorn was in reaching distance to both of them.

Tony was so content just munching popcorn and listening to Peter breathe that it was a few minutes until he realized what they were watching.

"Alien, really?" he groaned.

"I like it," Peter said with a shrug, and that was that.

Tony had lost all stomach for anything related to space the day he'd almost died in a wormhole. But the kid was enthralled, and that was more amusing than any movie. His emotions flickered across his face completely unguarded, suspense and humor and disgust in turns. Tony should have found his fascination cloying, because Tony Stark was not supposed to be content watching a kid watch a movie when there was a world to save and dozens of coolers things he could be doing. But all his frustration at the unsolved puzzle bled away, leaving him with a strange contentment, foreign in its totality.

Plus Tony recognized the faded sweatpants draped across his lap, MIT emblazoned down one leg that was frayed at the cuff. Nat had taken May and Peter back to their apartment to pick up some belongings shortly after they arrived, but on that first night Tony had left Peter an old t-shirt and sweats to sleep in\

. More out of practicality than sentimentality, he had told himself, except that there were plenty of standard issue clothing on base and he had still dug something from the bottom of his closet.

He'd never expected to see those clothes again.

The fact that Peter was wearing them now, when he had a closet filled with his own stuff and Tony had sent him away – Tony didn't have an explanation for the way it was making him feel, warm and possessive and so unfathomably fond.

But he was still Tony Stark, so as the alien lurked and the music swelled he couldn't help himself, and skittered his fingers across Peter's exposed ankle.

He expected the kid to jump or shriek. He did not expect a high pitched giggle, and a slight curling into himself.

"You're not _ticklish_ are you, Underoos?" he crowed with a growing sense of glee.

"What? No! Of course not," Peter stuttered, but as Tony's hands began to travel up his sides giggles overtook him. As the kid convulsed with laugher Tony felt chuckles of his own escape. The kid was just too adorable, trying to squirm out of his grasp as he panted nonsense like, "Oh my gosh, stop," and "This is so mature."

One moment Tony was the aggressor, clearly winning the tickle war, and the next he was flat on his back, Peter kneeling on his chest.

Peter's eyes were wide, like he was just as shocked as Tony, and Tony was afraid he was going to apologize – and damn if this kid wasn't going to be able to get away with anything, because Tony could not _stand_ to hear him say "I'm sorry."

But the shock faded, and Peter looked down at him with a smirk. "You know for Iron Man I thought you'd be stronger."

Laughter burst from him unchecked. "God I love you, you spider-brat." His brain caught up to his mouth a few seconds too late and he froze, certain he looked like Peter had just a few moments ago. Sure he meant it. He'd never doubt that again. He'd even said it out loud and confirmed it again – but both those times had been in raw, vulnerable moments, and now they were just goofing around. And Peter still hadn't said it back – and that was _fine_ , because they had time, and Tony would love him no matter how Peter felt – but he still remembered all too well how he'd waited for his father to—

"Love you too." It was like the cleanse of a new element, purging the palladium from his system, everything that had kept him alive while slowly killing him being replaced by something pure and miraculous. And then, as if the kid realized how uncomfortable Tony was in emotional situations, he added two words that lightened the mood immensely. "Old Man."

Tony snorted, pulling the kid down in retaliation, and Peter collapsed against him in a pile of boneless trust.

Tony would have been content to stay that way for a long time, but his back protested, the kid's taunt just a little too apt, so after a few minutes he rearranged them, leaning back against the couch and stretching his legs across the ottoman, while Peter sprawled out again, his head on a pillow in Tony's lap.

As the movie drew towards its end and the alien was flushed out the airlock Peter whispered, "Boom," like a mic being dropped. Tony couldn't help but smile, remembering his enthusiasm on the ship.

"It was a good plan, wasn't it?" Peter asked, but he wasn't as excited as that memory warranted.

"Yeah champ, real good. Who knew Hollywood occasionally gets the science right?"

"I miss Ned." The sigh that followed might have been a suppressed sniffle. "This was his favorite movie. We used to watch it together all the time."

Tony wasn't equipped for this – this comforting thing – but he ached for the boy, so his hand found its way into Pete's curls, hoping it would be soothing. His mother had done the same for him once upon a time and he'd always found it calming. Then she'd stopped, and then she'd been gone, and Tony had learned to find physical affection in very different places. Tony didn't know if the kid was too old for this, but he desperately wanted to save him from all his vices.

He wasn't sure what to say. Because he'd already swore they would find a way to bring everyone back, but this didn't feel like the moment to reiterate that promise, as if the better future they strove for should lessen today's grief. Peter was fine now, and Tony was still haunted by those terrible moments when he wasn't. Ned had been gone for months.

"I miss Happy," he finally offered, his hand carding rhythmically through Peter's hair. It wasn't until he voiced it aloud that the full force of that loss hit him, his compartmentalization leaking a bit at the seams. Peter hummed a quiet acknowledgement. "Do you know why I got him to keep an eye on you?"

"Because you didn't have time to do it yourself." There was no malice in Peter's tone, but that made it sting more. Because the kid wasn't wrong, and he wasn't even resentful – not anymore, at least – and Tony would always be ashamed of how his selfishness and his issues with his father had almost left Peter dead under a pile of rubble.

He'd do anything to avoid making those mistakes again. "Well, _yes_ , unfortunately. But also because Happy had my back during some dark times in my life. I figured, if he could handle me when I was out of control, he should have no trouble protecting a goody two shoes teenager who once told me he couldn't go on a mission because he had homework." Tony chuckled, remembering the man's exasperation. "I may have underestimated you a bit."

"I messed up. More than once. I just wanted to help—"

"We both did," Tony said firmly, shutting him down. He'd never meant to open that can of worms. "It's water under the bridge now. We've come a long way since then."

That was as massive an understatement as had ever been spoken. The man he'd been then had barely been able to have a direct conversation with Peter, too terrified of his own ineptitude and the possibility of molding the kid to be anything like himself that he'd hidden behind his suits and his driver.

And now he'd told the kid he loved him and lost all concept of personal space, and Peter had no idea how revolutionary that was. Because it had been a lot easier to build a suit of armor and fly away than to escape Yinsen's terrible pronouncement. For a decade those words had haunted him more than the beatings and the waterboarding. Pepper had been the start of his salvation. She'd been endlessly patient as he worked through his issues, and though she occasionally reached a breaking point when he relapsed she always came back, as addicted to him as he was to his glory-mongering. But there had still been something missing, even on the best of days. Insecurities she'd been unable to assuage, and issues she could not quite understand since she had two loving parents and an utterly unexceptional childhood.

Then Peter had come along, and none of Tony's mistakes had managed to push him away. He'd swung his way through the maze of Tony's heart just as skillfully as he sailed over Queens, with the same selfless determination to put things right.

Maybe that made Tony the old lady with the churro. But he was no longer a man with nothing.

The credits started to roll, and Tony could feel the energy shift as Peter started to rouse himself. He'd go off to bed, as he probably should, never knowing that tonight had been as momentous for Tony as when he'd snuck into Peter's room with a litany of confessions. He wanted the kid to understand how much he had changed his life for the better, but all the words jumbled together in his head. What he finally blurted was, "I'm going to leave you Stark Industries."

The kid sat up and swung around so quickly Tony saw only a gray blur, but it was a few seconds before his mouth caught up to his body. "Is that a joke?" he finally asked.

"Not a very funny one, is it?"

Peter was gaping, and Tony wanted to laugh at his shock but he reined it in. "You can't be serious. If you leave me your company what are you going to do when you and Pepper have kids?"

"I was thinking a Hunger Games fight to the death scenario," he quipped. Peter's eyes grew even wider, and this time Tony did laugh. " _That_ was a joke. Geez, you do know what the Hunger Games are, don't you?"

Peter nodded. "Katniss and stuff."

"Right. You know you might be pretty good with a bow and arrow. It's like web shooting without the tech. Legolas could teach you, I'm sure. Might get his mind off everything."

"Can you be serious for a moment?" Peter pleaded.

It was clear that the kid really didn't fathom how he could mean it, and Tony couldn't let that stand. " _If_ Pepper and I have more kids you'll be such a big part of their life they won't think it weird that they have to share their inheritance with their big brother. You will have to share then, which is a bummer, I know, but there's plenty to go around."

Peter kept shaking his head, seemingly not in denial but in shock. "I—Wow—You don't—"

He frowned, and Tony couldn't help himself. "Think you can manage a full sentence, bud?"

"I never cared about the money. I only cared about you."

Now it was Tony's turn to be shocked, because that was like a bat to the stomach, all the air in his lungs gone with a whoosh, but instead of being filled with pain like in Afghanistan this time he was overcome with euphoria. Because there was no guile in Peter's voice. The kid was an awful liar, and Tony didn't doubt him for a second. Yet this kid picked old DVD players off of street corners and had once admitted he got his sneakers secondhand. If anyone might be a _teeny_ bit justified in at least _imagining_ that Tony Stark might leave him just a fraction of his fortune it was Peter. But it had never crossed his mind, even after Tony confessed that he loved him like a son, that his attachment came with a sizable inheritance.

Suddenly Tony wanted to give him everything he couldn't fathom – a country estate and lavish European vacations, cars and robotics labs and a closet full of designer clothes. He deserved those things that Tony had never properly appreciated because they'd always been there. Luxury and convenience. Extravagance and thrill.

But an older, wiser, more sober part of himself wanted to shield Peter from that life entirely. Wished he'd never learn how an excess of money bred a thirst for more. Wouldn't have to hide away from sycophants and hangers-on, don sunglasses like an invisibility cloak and act whatever lie the media was quickest to believe.

It was a terrible life he was saddling Peter with, in so many ways.

It had the potential to be marvelous.

Tony might have lived it better, with a little more love and guidance.

Peter would never want for either.

"You have no idea how wonderous it is that I believe you. But that's why I know I'm making the right choice here. Because you don't want it. Not for the money's sake. And that's good. Because I'm not leaving you a trust fund. Well – I am. But not _just_ a trust fund. Stark Industries isn't a fortune. It's a responsibility. I didn't understand that until I'd been kidnapped by terrorists. But you've smartened up at a younger age. Between your heart, your brain, and the way you see the good in the world, you could make a real difference with the right resources. And I happen to be flush with resources."

He wasn't explaining this well. He'd been more eloquent with May. But he kept getting distracted by the way Peter was rubbing at his eyes. He reached out and settled his hand on the boy's shoulder.

Peter let out a shaky breath. "I don't know how to run a company."

Tony laughed and leaned forward conspiratorially. "Here's a not so well kept secret – neither do I. Luckily Pepper's great at it. She'll give you CEO lessons once you're a bit older. Neither one of us plans on retiring anytime soon. This is more of a looking down the road, long term scenario."

"So Pepper knows? And she's okay with it?"

"Of course Pepper knows. I may not have always been forthcoming with Pepper about some of my personal decisions, but I almost always consult her on business matters. She's the brains behind this whole operation, after all. She thinks it's a wonderful idea. She has this crazy notion that you're turning me into a responsible adult or something. Your aunt's onboard too."

That seemed to relax Peter, finally. "Is that what you were talking to May about the other night?"

"Among other things. I think I've finally convinced her I'm gonna stick around. We've reached an understanding."

"I'm sorry she's been rude."

Tony smirked. "Noticed that, 'eh? Your aunt, as hot as she is, can be absolutely terrifying. But she was protecting you, and that's something I'll always be on board with."

Peter cocked his head, something unreadable stealing across his face. "You're better at this than you think you are, you know?"

"Better at what?"

"Parenting." He paused, and then added in a wavering voice, "Dad."

"Was that weird?" he asked a few seconds later, and Tony immediately answered, "No," even though he felt like he was in a tailspin, thrusters down, every breakable piece of him covered in metal and hurtling towards the Earth. But by God he wanted Peter to call him that again.

"Not even a little weird?" the kid prompted, and Tony felt bad lying to him, which was not a problem he had with most people.

"Okay, it's weird. But not bad-weird. I like it. You could call me that – sometimes – if you want."

It took focus to remember to breathe as he waited for Peter's answer. The kid was obviously thinking about this more than Tony, who was reduced to a rambling mess. "I like it too. But I don't know. I don't want May to be upset."

It took Tony a few moments to work that out. "Because you don't call her Mom?"

"Yeah."

This seemed like dangerous territory, but ever since Titan Tony had been rather loose with boundaries. "Why don't you?"

The kid wrung his hands and looked down at his knuckles. "When she and Ben took me in I still remembered my parents. It would have been weird to call them Mom and Dad when they weren't, you know? By the time they basically were too much time had passed. We missed our window."

"I have no doubt that woman thinks of you as her son, no matter what you call her. She threatened my life if I ever hurt you, you know. Me. Tony Stark. Iron Man!"

"May's the best," Peter said fondly. Tony was so glad she'd smartened up faster than he would have in her situation, because the thought of Peter lost in some foster home haunted him. But she'd done better than Tony could conceive, given the circumstances.

"Tell her that every once in a while. That's all she needs."

Peter looked at him funny, his eyebrows jumping.

"What, too sappy?" Tony asked.

"Yeah," Peter said with a grin. "You really are good at this parenting stuff."

That couldn't possibly be true, but damn if Tony didn't preen a bit under the praise. "I am a quick study. I once learned thermonuclear astrophysics in one night."

"There are probably more books written about parenting than astrophysics, though," Peter countered.

"Probably. I haven't read any of them, though. Should I read a parenting book?"

Peter's reply was lost to a giant yawn. As Tony teased, "Charming," Peter pitched towards him, nuzzling his head into his side.

"Okay, I guess we're doing this now," Tony said after a few surprised moments, his hand returning, as if by instinct, to Peter's hair. Peter hummed a wordless affirmative.

"Are you narcoleptic? Cause if so we really need to talk about your nocturnal crimefighting activities. This adds a whole new level of danger. As an almost responsible guardian adjacent-"

"May read a few, I think," Peter interrupted, ignoring Tony's sidebar and returning to their actual conversation. "But you don't have to read a book. I just need you to be there if I need you."

It should have been one of the hardest things he'd ever been asked but it wasn't, and maybe that was the magic of parenthood.

Or maybe that was just love.

Because he'd promise the same to Pepper.

Had thought he could expect the same from the Avengers, once.

"I'm gonna be there so often you're going to wish I kept my distance."

"Not possible," Peter answered, soft and sleepy.

"I was a teenager once too, remember. It's definitely possible." Tony looked down at the kid half asleep curled against him, and wondered how he'd gotten so lucky.

"I need you to forgive me when I mess up," he admitted, not entirely sure the kid was conscious enough to still answer. Maybe that's what gave him the courage to say it.

"Course," Peter answered without hesitation, though he did not open his eyes.

"And you can call me anything you want. Except Mr. Stark."

"Tones? The Smartest Avenger? Daddy Warbucks?"

Tony had not thought Peter was awake enough for sass, but apparently he'd underestimated him. "Don't make me regret that statement, Underoos! I think it's past spider-kids' bedtime."

That did not rouse him. "'m good here," he mumbled into Tony's shoulder. "Iron Dad."

Tony snickered despite himself. "You'll be stiff in the morning."

"No I won't. The spider's flexible." Tony was about to respond that Iron Man wasn't when Peter added, "You keep the nightmares away."

Tony couldn't argue with that. Because he'd snuck downstairs a few nights himself, and he always slept better when he could hear Peter's breathing.

Even now he could feel himself winding down. He shifted himself so he was leaning against the arm of the couch, giving into the inevitable. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., turn off the TV and cut the lights."

"Look what you've done to me, kid," he muttered, pressing a kiss to his forehead before closing his own eyes. His unenhanced, old man body would surely protest in the morning, and one of the Avengers was bound to happen upon them and blast photo evidence to the entire Compound.

It would be entirely worth it.

* * *

 **There we have it! This was supposed to be a one shot, but all your comments and enthusiasm encouraged me to keep going. I cherish each and every review. If you've enjoyed the story but haven't commented yet, I'd love if you left me a few words before you go.**

 **Keep your eye out for the sequel, in which I pretend Infinity War 2 ends well.**


	7. After the Smoke Clears

Just wanted to let all my lovely readers know that I've posted the first part of the sequel, "After the Smoke Clears," and you can find it in my profile.

I hope you enjoy!

Thank you for all the reviews, favorites, and follows on Phoenix Rising! They mean the world to me. I'm glad I could add a little more IronDad fluff to the fandom.


End file.
